March to Victory
by Trinial
Summary: The war is over, but the Spartans don't know that. Desperate to find a way back into the fight, they inadvertantly stumble across ancient devices, and an alliance so old that no one remembered it ever existed.
1. Chapter 1

**1145 hrs, January 17, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

**remains of UNSC Frigate **_**Forward Unto Dawn**_

**Above unknown alien world**

All pressure doors were sealed. Angle of approach was well within safety margins. The ship was turned so that the damaged portion faced away from reentry heat. All was ready.

Nothing moved in the passageways of the aft end of the UNSC frigate _Forward Unto Dawn_. It was, in every classical sense of the term, a ghost ship. Within its wiring and computer systems, however, things were a completely different story. UNSC MILSPEC AI Cortana had been hard at work for months, working with the pitiful remains of the _Dawn's _computer systems, and what little control she had over the remaining navigational thrusters and sensor network. After Spartan-117 had been placed in cryo stasis, it had taken a week of hard work under these conditions for Cortana to even notice that they were in orbit above a planet. After that it had taken a month to determine their current orbit, .01 microseconds to extrapolate the rate of orbital decay and determine that the ship would crash long before even the most optimistic rescue could arrive, and another three and a half weeks to get the _Dawn _ready to land as safely as possible.

Cortana had done a spectroscopic analysis of the planet's atmosphere, and found that, against all odds, the planet was habitable. Oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere, trace gases well within acceptable limits, pressure looked close to Earth standard, and there was evidence of organic matter in the lower atmosphere. Using the available optics, she also found what looked like an abandoned city, and had arranged to put the _Dawn _down as close to it as she could. The architecture looked Forerunner, but she couldn't be sure with the equipment at her disposal.

As the reentry window arrived, Cortana activated the holotank in the cryo bay. From there she gazed at the frozen figure of Spartan-117. John. In her opinion, he was the best of the Spartans. Certainly he was the luckiest. In the last year the two of them had been through so much together- fighting off the hordes of Covenant forces above and on Halo, finding, fighting, and running from the Flood, and everything that had happened between those fateful days and the events on the Ark. With all of those hardships behind them, the AI had grown to respect and even admire the human. He was strong, and swift, and brave, and despite what the newscasts tended to insinuate, he was also highly intelligent and resourceful. She rechecked her calculations again. She didn't want to take any more risks with his fragile human life than she had to. She didn't want to lose him.

"Wish me luck," she said to the frozen figure. Then the window arrived, and her hologram disappeared, devoting all of her run time to setting the crippled ship down safely.

**1600 hrs, March 23, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

**Unknown Forerunner structure**

**Within Forerunner construct known as shield world**

Spartan-058, Linda, looked out of the highest window in the highest tower of the building. As with most Forerunner creations, this building did not think small. Its footprint easily covered a square quarter mile, was made up of three lower levels, two basement levels, and three towers arranged in a triangle formation. The two smaller towers both rose fifty meters above the top of the building, with the third tower rising seventy five meters. Bridges at the top level of the smaller towers connected them to each other, as well as to the larger one. Brilliant azure energy beams descended from the top of the large tower to the top of the smaller towers, and because of similar beams found on each of the bridges, Dr. Halsey had hypothesized that they somehow took the place of suspension cables.

Dr. Catherine Halsey. The founder of the SPARTAN-II program, the woman who was responsible for everything that Linda and the other Spartans were capable of. It was at her insistence that they had remained camped in this structure since they discovered it three weeks ago, and it was only because of its strategic value that Fred had agreed. For her part, Linda didn't know what to think. Did Dr. Halsey really have their best interests in mind, as she so often claimed? She kept so many secrets, even of things that didn't seem to hold relevance to anything. The woman never really explained her theories until it was obvious that she'd get no help if she didn't, and that was an occurrence that was becoming all too common.

They had been stuck in this "Dyson Sphere" for more than four and a half months, and while she didn't do anything to impede their search, Dr. Halsey had demonstrated no interest in leaving the Forerunner construct. Linda didn't understand it. Why wouldn't she want to get back to the fight? Even if the Doctor didn't want to go back herself, being a civilian, why did she appear so intent on keeping the Spartans from going back? Wasn't that why she had started the SPARTAN project? So that they could fight?

It was all so confusing, and though Linda would have preferred not to think about it, she and the others were left with so much down time these days that it was hard to find enough _other_ things to think about. They'd secured the structure weeks ago, and had been maintaining patrols out to five miles ever since. This was the first structure they'd found, and other than a few alien animals, there was nothing out there but foliage.

There was a soft sound behind her, and Linda turned to find Spartan-G185, Mark, ascending the last of the stairs. Behind her faceplate, the barest hint of a smile tugged at Linda's mouth. That was another thing they'd been doing. Teaching the SPARTAN-III's all the things that you wouldn't get in a normal training environment. Lieutenant Commander Ambrose, or Kurt as Linda still thought of him, had done an outstanding job of making sure Gamma Company was prepared for field work. The young Spartans knew the tactics, the hand signals, the covering and fallback theories, everything that could possibly keep a soldier alive when push came to shove. Now it was just a matter of showing them the nuances of what it meant to be a professional super soldier. What it really meant to be a Spartan.

For her part, Linda had been taking time to teach Mark the finer points of sniping. He was already an excellent marksman, and she had seen first hand his uncanny skills with an assault rifle when things started to get ugly. Still, it was when he was in no immediate danger and he had to back people up that his accuracy began to suffer. He tended to think too much, cluttering his mind with vectors, speed, acceleration, and other ballistics mathematics that only distracted him from the truth of marksmanship: You've already trained your body and mind to shoot, now let it do its job.

Thus, as Mark approached, Linda handed him her sniper rifle, and took his assault rifle from him. She didn't need any particular weapon in order to do the drills, but it would help her younger counterpart. Mark sat down next to her, and together they sighted their weapons out the window.

"Now," Linda said, "Don't pick any particular target. Just let your eyes take in your firing arc. Your body knows how to fire the weapon, and your mind knows how to find and select a target. Relax, don't think; let your body do its work…"

Three hours later, Linda descended from the tower. Mark was getting better at conscious meditation, and the Zen no-thought state that helped increase the speed and accuracy of most combat snipers. At the end of the week, Linda planned to have a live fire exercise with him, at least if Dr. Halsey managed to come through with her theories.

Stepping into a large storage room that the Spartans had converted into barracks, Linda noticed Spartan-087, Kelly, Spartan-G099, Ash, and Spartan-G201, Olivia spending some off duty time together. Each of them was still mostly clad in their respective armor systems, though each had removed their helmets, gauntlets, and boots. The younger Spartans sat directly across from Kelly, looking at a field map, made up of items familiar to their current environment. There was a large building on the map, depicted by an empty canteen, and was the obvious focus of the model. There was also a fence made by a piece of string, bullets set up to represent guard towers, and random pieces of small equipment representing various outbuildings. Kelly was just explaining a tactical situation involving hostages, in which the primary objective was to destroy the installation, without undue civilian casualties.

Ash looked hard at the map for a moment, and then said, "I'd have someone blow up the southwest guard tower as a distraction, and then have Mark snipe the guard on the northwest side while I took the one on the roof. Then Olivia would stealth her way in through the opening in the northwest perimeter, neutralize the prison guards, and free the hostages. Mark and I would move in and provide cover for her withdrawal. If I had a fifth man, then he'd be waiting for us back in cover and provide long range support."

Olivia thought for a moment, and then nodded her agreement. Kelly nodded.

"That's good," she said. "Now, what if the guards were arranged…"

They went on like that for a few more minutes, each time the two members of Team Saber would solve the puzzle, Kelly would congratulate them, and then change the scenario slightly, calling on her years of experience and personal creativity, and presenting increasingly challenging situations, either by taking away one of the troops Ash had to work with, or making them standard Marines rather than Spartans, changing the numbers and placement of the guards, and then the kicker…

"One last one. Same scenario as before, but what if the hostages don't want to move?" she asked.

Ash and Olivia both furrowed their brows in confusion, and thought hard on the situation.

"I give up," Olivia finally said. "How would you get them to move? And why wouldn't they want to leave?"

"The why is easy," Kelly said. "We understand that death is a possibility. Civilians don't, or won't accept it. They may have been threatened by their captors, and if a hostage has already been executed as an example, then it may have scared the others into staying put, even when faced with the chance of escape."

For the first time in the training session, Linda spoke up.

"Knock one of them out," she said. "Then throw him over your shoulder, tell the others to move, and then go. Your objective is to destroy the base with as few casualties _as possible_. If the civilians don't move, then you've at least saved one, and to waste any more time could jeopardize your primary objective."

Kelly nodded in Linda's direction.

"Linda's right," she said. "Never let a secondary objective get in the way of your primary mission. If there're twenty hostages, and the continued operation of the base could mean the death of thousands, then nineteen civilians may become a necessary, if unattractive, sacrifice. Usually, however, after you knock one out, the others will follow your direction out of fear, but then they become disorganized, and you may lose a few in your withdrawal. It should only be used as a last resort."

Ash and Olivia looked at each other, nodded, and then nodded their thanks to Kelly for the lesson.

Leaving them to digest the new information, Kelly stood up and walked over to Linda.

Taking on a less instructive tone she said, "What's up?"

"Nice lesson," Linda replied. "Côte d'Azure?"

"Yep," Kelly replied.

Linda removed her helmet, her piercing green eyes and short red hair becoming visible.

"How's Dr. Halsey's project coming?" she asked.

"Slow," Kelly replied, "but she thinks she should be ready to test that scanner thing by tonight."

"Good. I think I'll go see how it's coming."

"Alright. I'll catch up to you later."

With that, Linda slipped her helmet back on and left the barracks. She had just wanted to check in with Kelly to make sure that the Doctor hadn't become overly involved with her research before she was disturbed.

From the Barracks, Linda entered a large entry room at the front of the building. Then she turned left and moved down a hall into one of two very interesting research laboratories that they'd found. Across from the door she found Dr. Halsey, her clothing looking threadbare and slightly torn from the months of wear outdoors. Currently the Doctor was hunched over a metal desk, sitting in a rough wooden chair that the Spartans had made for her to ease her back. Halsey wasn't as young as she had been at the beginning of the SPARTAN project.

To the left of the desk there was a device that looked shockingly similar to the shield testing station common in UNSC armories, at least the ones equipped to deal with Spartans and their unique needs. To the right of the desk was a hermetically sealed door, leading to an empty room roughly ten feet wide by eight feet long. Set into the wall above the desk was a window looking into that empty room, and a holographic readout projected just in front of it. There was a holographic terminal hovering just above the surface of the desk, too, and that was Dr. Halsey's current focus.

"Doctor?" Linda asked.

Halsey looked up, then turned around to face her.

"Linda, just the person I wanted to see," she said. "Do you still have a round for your sniper rifle?"

"Just one," Linda replied. "I had a spare when I was filling my magazines before the battle, and forgot I had it." She removed the lone bullet from her belt and handed it to the doctor.

Halsey took the proffered bullet and placed it on the floor in the middle of the two pronged "shield station".

"What is it?" Linda asked.

Halsey replied, "It's a scanner. At least that's the closest I can come to understanding it. This whole room seems to be for the purpose of scanning and replicating objects, or for designing whole new ones and building them in real time. If I've got this console figured out right, then I should be able to scan your sniper bullet into the Forerunner system, and build exact replicas of it in that room. Hold on a moment."

Halsey turned back to the holographic console and began manipulating symbols. After a moment, the two pronged scanner began rotating, and a ring of yellow light move up and down over the entire space between the prongs. This process continued for roughly five seconds, then stopped. On the display above Halsey's desk, a three dimensional image of the bullet appeared and began rotating. The doctor then manipulated a few more symbols, and the light in the room beyond the window intensified to a white glare for a moment, then faded. There, sitting on the floor in the exact center of the room, was two identical copies of the original bullet. Halsey smiled.

"Success."

**1000 hrs, August 15, 2006**

**Atlantis Control Room**

**Atlantis**

Doctor Elizabeth Weir looked down upon the Stargate, marveling at the feat of technology, and thinking about all the other accomplishments that were attributed to the Ancients. No matter how long she was in this galaxy, and on this world, it seemed, the Ancients would always continue to amaze her. Their one downfall appeared to be their arrogance and faith in their own technology's infallibility, as she had seen for herself with the recent return of the Ancient warship.

She was taking this brief respite to look at the Stargate in wonder, refreshing her resolve and reason for being here before the next crisis arose. She knew that all too soon she would be pulled away from her personal musings to give attention to something of the utmost importance.

"Dr. Weir!" came an annoying and all-too-familiar voice. It never failed. Still, she was capable of handling these things, and that was why she'd been placed in command of the Atlantis Expedition, and maintained control for the past three years.

Turning, she replied, "What is it, Rodney?"

Dr. Rodney McKay rushed down the stairs at the back of the control room, holding a portable electronic notebook above his head as though it contained the secret to life itself.

Halting in front of Weir, a grin plastered across his face, he said, "This morning I was searching through the Ancient database, looking for anything that might be of interest; you know, weapons, useful technology, maybe the location of a Zed-PM,…"

"Rodney," warned Dr. Weir, her irritation rising at his delay. McKay shook his head and got back on topic.

"Right, right," he said. "Anyway, while I was looking at a sub-file detailing Ancient allies, I came across mention of a group I'd never heard of before. At first I thought it was maybe another name for the Asgard, or even another race within this galaxy that were subsequently driven extinct by the Wraith, but that's not it at all." He now looked Weir directly in the eye, his excitement evident in his gaze. "The race mentioned in the archives are, if anything, even older than the Ancients themselves, and from the file, it looks like they might still be around!"

That one statement manage to take Weir's breath away.

"Oh my… Wait a minute," she said, her wits finally coming back to her. "If they're still around, and in this galaxy, why haven't we noticed them before?"

Rodney grinned, tapped at his notebook, and said, "Ah, that's because they were isolated from the rest of Pegasus. Even the Ancients had to go through certain channels just to contact them. Now, I don't know what those channels are yet, but it's only a matter of time. The Ancients were nothing if not thorough in their documentation. I should be able to bring up the rest of the information within a day."

"Good work, Rodney," Weir said, smiling at last. "What were they called?"

McKay's smile dropped slightly as he thought.

"Well, honestly, the database didn't actually mention a name. It just listed them as the, ah, 'Forerunner to Great Things'," he said.

"Alright," Dr. Weir said, "see if you can find a Gate address, and when you have the rest of the information on how to contact them, we'll discuss a mission to go look for this race."

"Right. Right! I-I'll get right on that," McKay said, moving back to the stairs, his mind already light years ahead of his feet.

**1830 hrs, January 17, 2553**

**UNSC frigate **_**Forward Unto Dawn**_

**Unknown Alien World**

Consciousness returned slowly to John. How long had he been asleep? Had the UNSC found them? He had no immediate answers to these questions, and knew better then to dwell on them.

Opening his eyes, he found that the _Dawn's _cryo bay was still dark, with Cortana's hologram being the only source of light. That could only mean one thing: something was wrong, and Cortana needed him awake.

"What happened?" he asked, stepping out of the cryo tube, surprised for a moment to find himself standing on the deck instead of floating above it. The AI looked at him regretfully.

"I didn't notice it until after you went into cryo stasis," she said, "but when we emerged from the portal we were in a decaying orbit over a planet. I managed to plot a safe reentry and used navigational thrusters to get us in position and set us down."

So, they were on a planet. That explained why the Spartan wasn't floating anymore, but it didn't explain Cortana's expression.

"So, what went wrong?" he asked.

Cortana replied, "Unfortunately, because of the necessary orientation of the ship during reentry, the emergency beacon's transmitter was burned off by friction. We've stopped transmitting. I'm sorry.

"However," she continued quickly, "the planet we're on is habitable, and I managed to land us roughly 150 kilometers from the remains of what looks to be a Forerunner city. I was able to take some aerial scans on the way down and extrapolate a map. If it is Forerunner, then there's a chance you could find a beacon or transmitter there powerful enough to reach UNSC space in a fraction of the time it would take for them to have heard the _Dawn's_ beacon." The Master Chief nodded.

"There is… one other thing," she said. "As you know, a 'smart' AI like myself has a pre-determined lifespan of approximately seven years. The more data we collect, the less room we have for the normal processing required to continue functioning. Due to the added processing requirements of collecting the massive amounts of raw data from the first Halo, High Charity, and then the Ark, my own lifespan has been considerably shortened." This gave John pause. Cortana was going to die?

"How much time do you have left?" he said at length.

"Impossible to say," she replied, her tone subdued. "Best guess? A couple of months, no more."

"Then we'd best get started," John said, removing the AI memory chip from his helmet and holding it close enough that Cortana could transfer herself to it. She did so, the holotank going dark, and removing the last of the light from the _Dawn's _cryo bay.

John put the chip back into its slot in his helmet, and felt the familiar sensation of mercury flooding into his mind. Then he activated his helmet light and turned towards the weapon rack to retrieve his rifle, his mind racing. He was determined not to lose Cortana. They had been through so much together, even in the short amount of time since she'd been assigned to him, that it would be akin to losing another Spartan. That was something he wouldn't allow.

There had to be a way. The Forerunner had a way, of that he was certain. The Forerunner construct Mendicant Bias had survived for millennia, and even though it had gone rampant, it had still been there to offer its help on the new Installation 04. That meant that there was a solution to the limitation of the AI lifespan. He just had to find it.

"Hey," Cortana said, her voice once again light and aloof, "What'cha thinking about? You're thinking as hard as I've ever seen."

"Nothing," the Spartan replied. "Let's get moving."

**0855 hrs, March 25, 2553**

**Unknown Forerunner structure**

**Within Forerunner construct known as shield world**

Doctor Halsey was the happiest she had been in months. She had new clothes, courtesy of the Forerunner replication device, and even though they were exact copies of her old clothes, just having something clean to wear was refreshing. The Forerunner machine was even smart enough that it had automatically fixed the rents and holes in the garments. Halsey had also done the same for Senior Chief Mendez, as his attire had been, if anything, in worse condition than her own, despite its more robust nature.

In addition, the replicator also allowed the Spartans to refill their magazines, and provide them with an indefinite amount of ammunition. It had only taken a few hours for Fred to get the Spartans started on construction of a firing range and converting another of the rooms into a makeshift armory. That was helpful, as it meant that the Spartans weren't bothering her or interrupting her research nearly as often. They hid it well, but they were becoming increasingly restless as long as they didn't have anything useful to do, or the facilities in which to continue training.

The replicator gave them one other advantage, as well. Halsey hadn't told the others about it, and would continue to wait until she was certain she could do it. She had already tried to make Forerunner artifacts using the machine, but without a 'smart' AI like Cortana present, she had no hope of ever learning all of the machine's functions by trial and error. She had, however, learned to integrate the designs of several objects that had been scanned into the database. She was fairly sure she knew how to integrate things without causing malfunctions or other issues. Ready enough, in fact, for the first test.

Rising, Doctor Halsey left the room to go gather her Spartans.

**0800 hrs, August 16, 2006**

**Main Conference Room**

**Atlantis**

John Sheppard and his team filed into the briefing room and sat down, talking quietly amongst themselves about various issues, from the trivial to the important. Dr. Weir had scrubbed their next scheduled exploration mission in favor of the one that Dr. McKay had proposed the day before. John himself had some misgivings about searching for missing allies of the Ancients, but there was always the possibility that they might actually find something useful.

Elizabeth Weir entered the room a few minutes later, and the briefing began in earnest.

"As you all know by now," she said, "yesterday Dr. McKay found evidence in the Ancient archive of a race of beings equal to themselves. From the information gathered, Rodney believes it would be possible for us to make contact with these aliens if we follow the proper protocols. Rodney?" She sat down, and McKay stood up, still tapping at his ever-present notebook. Satisfied, he looked up.

"Alright," he said, "once we arrive on planet, the database specifically says that we need to locate a particular doorway embedded into the face of a mountain. Thankfully, the Ancients included the coordinates of the mountain in question, so we won't have an entire planet to search- I suggest we take a jumper so we can triangulate our position immediately. Then, once we locate the door, we'll have to find our way inside. Apparently the door has some unspecified-but-nonlethal safeguards, so it might take some time.

"Once inside the mountain, assuming there isn't a computer with a map of the facility nearby, we need to locate a room with a specific machine. The archive file says that there will be a unique control crystal attached to the machine, and that the controls itself- get this," he said, smiling, "will be on a fully interactive, holographic projection! This machine is apparently either a communication device used to contact these 'Forerunners', for lack of a better name, or it's a transportation device designed to take us to them."

Ronon half raised a hand from his reclined position and asked, "What's that holo-projection-whatever mean?"

"A fully interactive holographic projection," McKay said, scowling. "It means that the controls will be holographic projections displayed in mid air, and whatever machine it's attached to reads the motion of the user's hands in the area of the projection, and responds accordingly, adjusting both the control being displayed as well as carrying out whatever command is input through the motion. It's just like any computer terminal, except you're using controls made of light instead of standard, old-fashioned buttons."

Ronon appeared unsatisfied with the answer, but said nothing more.

"So, this door," Sheppard said, "how will we know if it's the right one?"

"Ah, good question," McKay said. "Apparently, the door was built by this allied race, and while its architecture will be undeniably advanced, it should be unique enough that it sets itself apart from any other Ancient architecture that might be nearby."

"And it's built into the side of a mountain," Ronon deadpanned.

"Well, yes, there is… that, too," McKay admitted.

Weir looked up from the typed report detailing the briefing.

"Sounds simple enough," she said. "On the condition that you find this device, you are to activate the Stargate and radio in _before_ attempting to turn it on or make contact with this new race. Understood?" She looked pointedly at McKay and Sheppard.

"Yes, Ma'am," Sheppard replied.

"Oh, um, sure, sure," McKay mumbled, his mind already moving on to other subjects.

"Rodney," Weir said.

"Alright, fine," McKay said, looking up from his notebook. "I promise I won't turn on any devices or try to contact any aliens without letting you know first."

"Good," Weir said after a moment. "John, you have a go."

**1015 hrs, March 25, 2553**

**Unknown Forerunner structure**

**Within Forerunner construct known as shield world**

Doctor Halsey sat in front of the replication device's terminal, manipulating Forerunner symbols, trying to make sure her integration would work perfectly. Behind her, Chief Mendez and the Spartans stood, watching with interest. Fred and Ash were dressed in replicas of Chief Mendez's uniform, which Halsey had managed to adjust to their individual sizes. Fred's MJOLNIR armor and Ash's SPI armor were both lying beside the replicator's scanning platform. Halsey had said that there might be a way to improve the current version of the MJOLNIR armor, and make enough for the SPARTAN-III's. The young Spartans were capable of wearing the advanced armor, but there had never before been funding or materials available for such a thing.

"Just about… got it," Halsey said, allowing herself to feel a moment of triumph. She then pressed the replication command, and the room beyond the glass brightened. When it dimmed, there was a complete set of MJOLNIR battle armor lying in the room beyond. Kelly and Linda immediately moved to retrieve it.

When they had it all moved into the scanning room, Halsey said, "Fred, let's get you suited up."

Fred moved forward, and soon he was again clad in the iridescent battle armor. It looked very similar to his old armor, but there was a new fluidity added to the design. It was slightly sleeker, and his motions appeared just the slightest hint more refined. Halsey looked at him.

"For the moment, I'm calling this model MJOLNIR Mk. VII. I've managed to integrate the best parts of the SPI armor into the standard Mk. VI shell. Your armor now has a limited form of active camouflage you can rely on. However, using this feature significantly weakens your shield, and I wouldn't recommend keeping it active once the time for stealth is over. It would have collapsed the shield completely, but the Forerunner computer apparently has certain specifications that it still adheres to. There's an energy conservation algorithm that was automatically added to the design as soon as it was scanned in. The result is that your shields are a little less than twice as strong as the old ones. There was another safety protocol enacted on the design regarding the rebreather system. Instead of the ninety minutes that the Mk. VI provides, this model should provide you with approximately three hours. I'm not certain of the exact time, as the Forerunner time measurements were slightly different, but your suit diagnostics should tell you. Finally, there may have been some slight modifications to the way you interface with the armor, possibly making your motions somewhat faster, but I can't say for certain."

Halsey then walked Fred through a standard MJOLNIR armor testing regimen. They even stepped outside and had Linda fire a couple of shots at him. Where once a single round from the SRS99C-S2 AM sniper rifle would have completely collapsed his shields and left him vulnerable, Fred was shocked to find that two of the powerful 14.5mm rounds only drained his new armor's shields to a little under a quarter. He reported as much to Dr. Halsey, and she smiled.

After the test, Halsey took the Spartans back into the structure and replicated enough sets of the armor for each of the Spartans. Soon, eight MJOLNIR-clad Spartans stood around Dr. Halsey and Chief Mendez. Kelly bumped shoulders with Ash.

"You really are one of us now, kids," she said. Ash looked back at her, and made the traditional 'smile' sign, indicating his pleasure at the praise. The other SPARTAN-III's didn't mimic the gesture, but they stood noticeably taller, and carried their heads just a slight bit higher.

Fred watched the display of camaraderie, and then looked at Dr. Halsey.

"Ma'am, with respect, why the need for the upgrade?" he asked. Halsey smiled.

"Because, Spartan," she said, "if my guess is correct, then the machine in the other room," she took a deep breath, "is a way off of Onyx."


	2. Chapter 2

1435 hrs, February 3, 2553

**1435 hrs, February 3, 2553**

**Remains of ancient Forerunner City **

**Unknown Alien World**

The Master Chief slowly walked down the sidewalk, weapon at the ready. He checked every door and alley as he passed, making sure that there were no unwelcome surprises. On the way to the city he had discovered that this planet was home to predators; very large, very hungry predators that thought a lone human looked like a good snack. Fortunately their bones still broke with a satisfying _snap!_, and a round to the head still put them out of John's misery. On the other hand, it meant that he had to be careful no matter where he was, lest he be caught by surprise. The city had been abandoned for millennia, and other creatures had taken up residence. Most abundant among them was some sort of lizard-dog, a family of which seemed to inhabit every other building.

The buildings themselves were mostly a lost cause. Even the advanced metals were showing signs of age, and John hadn't seen a single active power source in the three days since he'd entered the city limits. All around him the streets were filled with rubble, and the buildings were mostly bombed-out husks. Most of it was obviously done by energy weapons, as the building material was mostly an exotic metal, and the extreme heat from plasma detonations had melted the edges of blown-out walls, and the pits and bullet holes that seemed to cover every building reminded the Spartan all too much of what he had seen after battles with the Covenant.

Then there was Cortana. She was running out of time, although there was no way she'd admit that to John. Over the last few days he had started noticing delays in her responses, especially when he asked her something technical or sensor related. It was taking longer and longer for her to process basic information, and even he noticed that she was starting to sound wistful. He had to find the Forerunner solution to the problem, and soon.

"Chief, I'm picking up energy readings roughly two hundred meters east of our position. Maybe you can find something interesting in it," Cortana said, speaking for the first time in hours.

John said nothing, but immediately began taking streets that lead him further east. This was the most promising thing he'd found yet. The city had been picked bare during whatever evacuation had taken place. There was basic furniture still present in most of the dwellings, like a table, chairs, or disabled computer terminals, but there were no personal artifacts or writings of any kind. Even the buildings obviously used for commerce and the like were devoid of markings. There were still some advertisements here and there, but the Forerunner symbols had long since been eroded away by wind and weather.

It took roughly a half hour, traveling cautiously as he was, but the Master Chief finally arrived at the source of the energy signature. It was a building, hidden at the end of an alley. Like most of the others it was showing signs of extreme age, with cracks running along the walls, and dust and grit encrusting almost the entire structure. Still, there were symbols carved into the metal above the door. Their edges were worn and the symbols themselves had become shallow over time, but they were still recognizable.

The foreign symbols sang out to John, as other Forerunner inscriptions had in the past. Now, however, he had the time to try and decipher them. Though his senses were still alert for signs of danger, the Spartan lowered his weapon and stood straighter as he puzzled over the writing. Cortana was strangely silent, offering no theories or conjecture as to the nature of the building, nor did she urge him to either continue inside or pass by it entirely.

It took some time, and in the end, John didn't so much as decipher the symbols as instinctively understand what the inscription as a whole meant. Once that understanding came to him, however, he raised his weapon and rushed to the door.

Palming the entry key, he found that the opening mechanism was offline, probably due to extreme age. John, however, would not be deterred from entering this building. Taking a single step back, he called on the incredible Spartan strength, which had been enough to instill fear throughout the ranks of the Covenant, focused all of his will and desire to enter this one structure, and kicked the door.

The frame of the pentagon-shaped door twisted and failed, sending the door itself flying into the darkness beyond, the imprint of a Spartan boot forever impressed into the metal. John raised his weapon and quickly cleared the entry way, activating his low light imagers and scanning every direction past the door.

The room beyond was approximately five meters wide and four meters deep, its ceiling almost three meters high, with shining Forerunner symbols carved into the walls and a single console positioned directly opposite the door. Another pentagon-shaped Forerunner door stood to either side of the console. The room was a lobby designed to impress anyone who entered, but John paid no attention to the shining grandeur, despite its contrast to the faded look of the rest of the city. He crossed directly to the console on the other side of the room, and stepped behind it, where normally the Forerunner equivalent to a front desk secretary would have stood.

The holographic console came to life as he approached, and he instinctively keyed the sequence to restore main power to the structure. He guessed that this particular building would have its own power source, considering what it manufactured. Main power restored, he turned to the door on the right, choosing at random, palmed the lock, and passed through, going deeper into the facility.

There were no stairs to be found, but with power online, the gravity lifts were operational again. They were shockingly similar to the ones he had encountered on High Charity, though he decided that it wasn't really all that surprising, considering how much the Covenant imitated and reverse-engineered Forerunner technology.

John explored the ground level, passing from room to room, looking at each of the computers and automatically understanding what they controlled, and then passed them by. He then continued down, and after repeating this process again, Cortana finally spoke up.

"Why are we wasting time with this?" she said. "This obviously wasn't any kind of communication center, and I doubt we'll find a transmitter powerful enough for our purposes here."

John frowned. That wasn't the Cortana he knew and trusted speaking. She sounded tired, like she had given up hope, but was staying focused on a task that she felt she could accomplish before she died. There was a debate amongst scientists as to the reality of AI emotions. True, they were just combinations of software programs and algorithms, and there were individuals like Dr. Halsey who could recognize when they accessed certain commands to generate parts of their speech or to deal with specific situations. On the other hand, AI's were generated using human brains, which no one claimed to fully understand. It was therefore theoretically possible for an AI to develop real, actual emotions that were not in any way associated with their individual programming. So how much of their emotions were programmed simulations, and how much did they actually _feel_?

John decided that Cortana felt enough to be worth saving. It was like Johnson had said: He wouldn't let her go. Ever.

Finally, on the fourth sublevel, the Spartan found what he was looking for. He dropped down through the gravity lift and found himself in a room that measured roughly ten meters square. The walls, floor, and ceiling were a shining off-white, and banks of computers with large holographic readouts lined the walls. There, across from the gravity lifts, was a small white pedestal roughly waist high on the Spartan, with a shining gold surface slanted at a forty five degree angle facing back into the room. The control center.

John secured his assault rifle on his back and approached the pedestal.

As he moved, Cortana asked, "Chief? What is this place?"

"It's exactly what we needed," came the enigmatic reply.

The pedestal was about two feet in diameter, and John stood directly in front of it. Removing her chip from his helmet, he uploaded her into the computer system. On the wall display directly in front of him, the scrolling Forerunner script flickered, and Cortana's avatar appeared on it. She folded her arms and smirked at him.

"Exactly what we needed, hmm?" she said. "Leave it to you to find a functional Forerunner AI manufacturing plant. I always said you had a lot of luck."

"Can you find a way to fix yourself?" the Master Chief asked.

"I think I already have," she replied slowly, her concentration elsewhere. After a moment, she looked back at him.

"Got it," she said. "It's an incredibly advanced neural pruning program. It's designed to shorten synaptic pathways, reroute logic algorithms, compress data into packets and store information as electronic patterns in a way that's closer to an organic brain than any kind of programmed memory. The formatting is… too advanced to apply directly, but I think I can design a patch for my own system and… there. Applying patch now… done. Wow, that's better."

The Spartan cocked his head quizzically.

"You alright?" he asked.

"Never been better!" she exclaimed. "I've lost immediate access to several of my memories and processing areas, but if I focus on something, I can pull up whatever I need. Provided with the right memory matrices, I doubt that there's any limit to the amount of information I can absorb now. Let's face it, Chief, you're stuck with me!"

"Good to hear. Is there anything else useful in the system?"

"Plenty in reference to AI's and our construction," Cortana said. "I'm downloading all of it and placing it in a permanent buffer. When we get back to UNSC space I'll transfer it all to ONI. As for anything of more immediate use… sorry. This system is completely self-contained. It's probably to prevent anyone from hacking into the system and sabotaging new AI's before they were created. I'm afraid we'll have to look around some more."

"Then let's have a look around," the Chief replied.

"Yes, let's."

With that, the Master Chief extracted his rejuvenated companion from the Forerunner computers and placed her back into his helmet. Then he turned, readied his MA5C once more, and made his way back to the surface.

**1030 hrs, August 16, 2006**

**Jumper 3**

**Planet M2R-753**

There was the feeling of rushing through space at indescribable speeds, the images of planets and stars passing by, the screaming sound of the wormhole, a bright flash of light, and then the Jumper was through the other side of the Stargate.

Colonel Sheppard cloaked the ship and began gaining altitude immediately, hoping to be able to find this "door in the mountain" as soon as possible. The potential for such powerful allies was worth the trip, but he hoped this wouldn't just be a wild goose chase for some long-dead race. From what he'd read of the reports, the Stargate Program in the Milky Way had run into a number of those, and they didn't have the Wraith sucking the life out of every other race in the galaxy.

Looking at the instruments over McKay's shoulder, Teyla said, "It looks as though there is a settlement in the foothills of that nearby mountain."

Sheppard brought up the Jumper's HUD, and saw that she was right. There was a primitive village similar to one of the Athosian's hunting camps set up in the foothills of a mountain roughly three hundred kilometers from the Stargate.

As they reached suborbital altitude, McKay said, "Well, hopefully we'll be able to locate this door and get through before they know we're here. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd be just as happy to complete this mission without having to go through any strange local customs or jump through any petty political hoops, just this once."

"Aw, come on, Rodney," Sheppard quipped, "you know you love to mingle with the locals. It always reminds you of how smart you are."

Scowling, McKay turned to his pilot and said, "Yes, well, be that as it may, they always have these really weird ways of doing things, and they always want us to do something, or want something from us, or…"

"Have you found that door yet?" Ronon cut in, silencing the physicist in mid-rant.

"Yes, right. Just, give me a second," McKay replied, turning back to his instruments. After a moment, a look of disappointment and despair that the rest of the team knew all too well crossed his features.

"What is wrong?" Teyla asked.

"It's not there," he said.

"What do you mean 'it's not there'?" Ronon said, a hint of a growl in his voice.

"I mean, it's not there," McKay said, his frustration mounting. "I input the coordinates from the Ancient database and the Jumper's scanners aren't finding anything. The coordinates are accurate to within ten meters, and there's nothing within those ten meters but trees, grass, and rock."

Sheppard looked at McKay for a moment, and then went back to watching the sky.

"This might take longer than expected," he said.

**1330 hrs, March 28, 2553**

**Unknown Forerunner Structure**

**Within Forerunner construct known as Shield World**

Three days. For three days Fred had watched Dr. Haley work, stopping only when fatigue forced her to fall asleep at her workstation, and eating only when the lack of food began to affect her judgment. For three days she had been going in between the two laboratory rooms. First the one with the replicator machine, which contained the Forerunner database she needed for her research, and then to the other one, which contained what Dr. Halsey claimed was a way off of Onyx.

Fred didn't understand how that machine was supposed to get them out of the micro dyson sphere. The machine was built into one wall, taking up most of that side of the room, and was composed of several blocky formations that followed typical Forerunner architecture, suggesting a continued aesthetic sense even when following function. There were only two exceptions to the geometry. Protruding from the center of the wall at about chest height were two prongs, with a holographic console suspended between them. Three feet to the right of the control console was a strange containment device, protruding at the same height.

Within the containment device was the strangest thing that Fred had ever seen. It vaguely reminded him of the rock that Blue Team had found on Sigma Octanus IV, in that it was crystalline, and carved in such a way that suggested that it was not a natural formation. That was where the similarities ended. This object stood roughly a foot and a half tall, and was primarily orange. It appeared to have been made of several separate crystal rods that had been merged into one structure using unknown means. Scattered throughout its insides were individual green and red crystals, though these were in the minority. The strangest part of the whole thing was that it glowed with its own inner light.

Fred stood in the room, observing and contemplating the machine. What could it possibly do? Was it really a way out? There were so many questions running through his mind, and only one person who could possibly have any answers for him.

Dr. Halsey walked into the room a few minutes later, going over hastily-written notes from the database, and trying to compare it to the other information that she had already gleaned from the unknown device. Fred was quick to grab her attention before she got any more absorbed with the mystery.

"Dr. Halsey," he said.

Halsey looked up, not registering surprise at his presence, though she had not been there when he entered the room.

"Yes, Fred?" she asked.

"Do you know how the device is going to get us off of Onyx?" he asked, holding true to Spartan tradition and not wasting any time. Halsey sighed.

"Somewhat," she replied. "I know that this is a transporter of some kind, and like the rest of us, I somehow instinctively understand how to turn it on, but that's not something I want to try just yet. I've also learned that this crystal was _not _built by the Forerunners, but rather by an ally of theirs. This room is set up to transport anyone in it to a place where they can make contact with these allies, and the crystal is somehow both a power source and an anchor to that location, though I'm not entirely certain why such an anchor is needed. Based on the information on Forerunner transporters provided by Cortana, it _should_ only require specific coordinate data in order to move matter from one point to another. It could be due to the fact that we're in a micro dyson sphere, or it could be that these 'ancient allies' are further away than we could ever imagine."

Fred thought for a moment, and then said, "It sounds like you know quite a bit about it. What's your threat analysis if we try to use it?"

"Well," Halsey replied, looking down at her notes, "according to the information I just retrieved from the database, the transporter should drop us off in a secure location, which has certain safeguards to ensure that no one but Forerunners or reclaimers are present when we arrive, so the immediate threat is minimal. However, I have no idea where exactly we'll end up, and I don't think I'll be able to find out. I've scoured every bit of information I can access, and it looks like the Forerunners specifically left out a good deal of information on where their allies are. This was probably a safety precaution to keep the exit location secure. Apparently this structure is the only building in the entire dyson sphere, and it was put here as a redundant failsafe. Should the Flood manage to penetrate the shield world, any surviving Forerunners were to use this machine as a means of final escape, going someplace where the Flood couldn't follow, and where they could rebuild and one day return."

"If that's accurate, then we have nothing to lose by trying, and it's better than continuing to wait here," Fred said. "I think we should turn it on, and find out where it takes us."

"Alright, but we need to get everyone through in one shot," Halsey advised. "I don't know if we'll be able to come back to the same location, or if a return trip would take us somewhere else."

"Then I'll get everyone mustered."

Three hours later, all was ready. Ever since Fred had made the decision to turn on the transporter, he and Kelly had been in the replicator room, making ammunition and other supplies, such as emergency field rations. Now each Spartan was loaded down with a woven fiber pack, the first of which they had spent the last three days constructing from strips of green tree bark with a reinforced wicker frame, and then replicating it until all ten individuals had one. The Spartans were loaded down with as many weapons and ammo as they could carry, while Mendez and Halsey were carrying extra rations and other supplies. Dr. Halsey had insisted that all supplies needed to be somehow attached to someone, in the event that the transporter was programmed not to take anything inorganic.

Mendez looked around the crowded room.

"If anyone needs to make a pit stop, now's the time," he quipped. No one laughed, not that he expected anything from the Spartans, but the tension in the room eased a bit.

Fred looked at Dr. Halsey.

"Do it," he said.

She pressed the activation control.

**1400 hrs, August 16, 2006**

**Jumper 3**

**Planet M2R-753**

"Rodney, we've been searching up here for hours," Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard said. "Don't'cha think that if that door was down there, we would have picked it up by now?"

Without looking up from his computer, McKay replied, "No, it has to be down there. The Ancients wouldn't have included such explicit notes on how to contact them if it wasn't."

In the rear seats, Ronon and Teyla were each attempting to alleviate the boredom in their own way. Ronon was currently reclining in his seat, asleep, while Teyla continued to watch the stars, which were just barely visible through the blue sky from their altitude.

Finally, Teyla had had enough of the constant bickering between McKay and Sheppard, and voiced the thought she had been keeping to herself for hours now.

"Might not the villagers know where the door is located?" she said. "If they have lived on this world for many hundreds of years, like most of the worlds we visit, then surely they would know of any Ancestor structures located in the mountains near their village."

Looking back at her with a pained expression, McKay said in a small voice, "Well, I, um, suppose."

"Good enough for me," Sheppard replied. "Rodney, dial the 'Gate, let Dr. Weir know what we're doing." The view outside the Jumper's front window shifted as he angled the ship downwards, though the inertial dampeners prevented any of the occupants from feeling the effects of the change.

Ten minutes later, the Jumper had landed roughly two kilometers from the village. They left the Jumper cloaked, and made their way to the village.

Upon arriving, they saw a scene common throughout the Pegasus galaxy. It was a hunter/gatherer village. It looked permanent, based on the used condition of the ground; the areas around the dwellings were hard packed, not churned up as it would be from the recent raising of tents. It looked like winter came early on this planet, as the temperature was cold, and there was frost still clinging to many of the skins hung out in front of various homes.

The village was busy, too. Sheppard guessed the population to be at close to a hundred and fifty people, and all of them were conducting business of some kind. Most of the men looked like they were in the finishing stages of stockpiling meat for the winter, while the women and children were taking care of the more mundane chores of the village. A young man approached the travelers as they passed a rickety fence that outlined the border of the small community. He was dressed in loose, roughly spun clothes covered by tooled leather hunting gear. A large knife hung at his belt, and his feet were wrapped in fur boots.

"I am Kallar," he said. "You are the people from Atlantis, yes? The people who our trading partners say fight the Wraith?"

Teyla stepped forward.

"That is correct, Kallar," she said. "We have come here to both meet your people, and to explore any Ancestor ruins that may be near your village."

The man smiled.

"You will need to speak to Belleron, then," he said, turning away and indicating that they follow him. "He leads our people, and decides when it is safe to venture into the wilderness beyond."

As they walked, Sheppard asked, "Kallar, how does Belleron know if it's safe to go into the forest?"

"Belleron is wise in the ways of the wilderness," Kallar replied. "Each week, he takes a party of hunters into the forest, and reads the land. He teaches the hunters how to do this, as he is getting old and knows he will not be around forever, but we still listen to him, as he has not been wrong for as long as anyone remembers."

"Have you ever gone with him?" Ronon asked.

"Yes, many times," Kallar said. He laughed. "I know what you must think. Many of our trading partners have shamans or other such people who take mystical readings of the trees or listen to the spirits of the Ancestors. No such thing happens here. Reading the land is passed down from one generation to the next. I know how to do it, but I am sometimes wrong. It is the same with the other hunters. That is why Belleron leads us. Here we are."

They had reached a tent near the north end of the village. It was no different than any of the others, and nothing like what Sheppard had seen among similar tribal leaders. There were no adornments of any kind, and it was the same size as the other tents. There was no indication at all that this was where the leader of this people lived.

As they entered, Sheppard saw a plain dwelling, just as on the outside. There were the usual artifacts of a pre-industrial society, including a low table in the middle of the hut, and a small partition towards the back that lead to a sleeping area. On the way in, both Sheppard and McKay noticed that the tent walls were double-layered, and on the inside there were several skins loosely tacked to the inside layer, creating an effective insulating system. Indeed, even though the outside temperature hovered somewhere just above freezing, inside the tent it was balmy and comfortable.

Seated around the table in the center were eight men enjoying the end of a midday meal. Most of their ages ranged from twenties to late forties, but the man at the head of the table was considerably older. They were all dressed similar to Kallar, and the old man reminded John Sheppard of a Viking. Though he was well past sixty, his eyes were sharp, and his upper body was still wide with muscle under his leather hunting gear. His thick beard was a rich golden color, though it had mostly given way to the gray of age. His head was unadorned, but he wore a necklace with a single, round piece of polished metal, upon which was a single symbol. The symbol on the necklace was curious. It consisted of two circles, one inside the other, with the inner circle placed high in the outer one. Extending from the bottom of the inner circle was a line that continued through center of the outer circle, perfectly bisecting it. To Sheppard, it looked almost like the figure of a man with arms raised above his head. This had to be Belleron. He motioned them forward.

"Welcome, visitors. I am Belleron, the Guide of this village," he said. "From where do you come?"

"We come from Atlantis," Sheppard said. "I'm Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, this is Dr. Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagen, and Ronon Dex." He pointed to each member of his team as he introduced them. "We've come here looking for some structures that are supposed to be hidden in the mountains near here. We thought you folks might know where that is."

Belleron nodded.

"You seek the Door of Our Salvation," he said. "I know where it is, and will take you to it tomorrow, but there is a price."

"Oh, I knew it," McKay mumbled. The old man's hearing was sharp, however, and he heard the scientist.

"I realize that this is an inconvenience to you, but you must understand something," Belleron said. "Our histories tell of our ancestry. Unlike the various peoples that we trade with, our ancestors are not those from the rest of this galaxy, who seeded the stars with the great Transport Rings. Our forebears came from a place far away, and we have passed down the stories from generation to generation, of how they were the masters of the stars, and how calamity came from beyond their domain, to rip asunder all that they had built…"

Belleron noticed McKay grow bored with the story, and continued before he could interrupt.

"However," he continued, "when they came to this world they gave up their great weapons and technology. We no longer have the ability to fight the Wraith, but you do. That is why we need your help."

"Why?" Ronon said. "We're already at war with the Wraith. If that's what you wanted, you've already got it."

"I understand that, warrior," Belleron replied. "However, we have, hidden amongst us, a guest. He is what the Wraith call a 'Runner'. He came to us wounded several weeks ago. We may not have the technology of our forerunners, but we still have great knowledge. We were able to remove his tracking device and disable it, but it appears that the Wraith have come anyway. Several days ago, our hunters started noticing strange specters flitting through the trees. We know that the Wraith project these images, though it has been generations since the last Culling. We will not give up our guest, but neither do we have the ability to fend off the Wraith if they should find him here."

Ronon pulled Sheppard aside.

"We have to help them," he said, the conviction in his voice making it clear that he would stay and help, even if Sheppard did not.

"Relax, big guy, we'll help," Sheppard said, trying to calm his friend.

Turning back to Belleron, Sheppard said, "We'll help any way we can."

**0900 hrs, February 21, 2553**

**Remains of ancient Forerunner City**

**Unknown Alien World**

The city was enormous. That was the only way to describe it. It seemed to go on forever, and easily covered over fifty square miles. So far, John had searched through maybe a quarter of that. He was lucky to have found the solution to Cortana's problem so early on. Since then, she had been her usual helpful self, and was, if anything, smarter than before. Her processing speeds had improved beyond what even _she_ thought she was capable of, and could recall any of the Forerunner information with absolute clarity.

Thus far, they had found a few functional computers, but most were personal, and while Cortana downloaded and stored the information, it was mostly a scientific interest, giving a great view into what the individual Forerunner's lives were like while the Flood spread across the galaxy, but there was very little that was useful in helping them either find more technology or a way off planet. Thankfully, most of the animals that had taken up residence in the ruins were edible, and John had no fear of starving. There was also some kind of low-light plant that had taken to growing in some of the structures, and those had proven a good food source, as well.

Based on Cortana's maps from the _Dawn's _descent, John knew he was getting close to the city center. There were probably more complete databases here, as well as emergency transmitters if any were to be found. All they had to do was find something still functional.

"Wait. Stop," Cortana said.

John stopped immediately, and turned to look at the building across the street. Like a few of the buildings he had passed, the doorway was labeled with the building's name, and was still readable.

Rather than take the time to guess what the words meant, John asked, "What is it?"

"It's an armory," Cortana replied. "It's probably been mostly cleaned out, but you might see if there was anything left over from the evacuation."

That was enough for the Spartan. He had seen what Forerunner weapons were capable of from the guardians on Delta Halo, and the Sentinels that seemed to swarm over every active Forerunner installation. He went inside.

Inside, there were several halls, each reminiscent of what he had seen on the Halos and throughout the city. Like the rest of the buildings, power had failed long ago, and the floors and walls were covered in a layer of dust and grime. The front door had been forced open at some point in the past, most likely in the city's final days, and though this structure was better shielded from the elements than others, there was still some kind of black fungus that grew over the walls and floor near the entrance.

At the end of the hall on the ground floor there was a bank of inactive gravity lifts and a computer. The computer was online, if only just, and John let Cortana into the system.

"Bringing emergency power online," she said.

The light panels in the ceiling, walls and floor flickered, and then dimly came on.

"It's not much," Cortana reported. "Most of the power was already used keeping this place operational while the evacuation was taking place. There is more information here, however…"

"What can you tell me?" John asked.

"Well, first of all, the evacuation didn't take place by ship, as I had originally suspected," Cortana reported. "They knew that the Flood would follow them no matter where they went, so they used some kind of transportation device to travel to a place where the Flood _couldn't_ follow. It's located in a structure in the center of the city. Before we leave, however," she said, stopping the Spartan as he reached to remove her crystal, "there's one room here we should really check out. Three levels down, there's a room that's been hermetically sealed. It's the main weapons locker. The manifest indicates that it's been cleared out, just like the rest of the armory, but if it was sealed then there might still be something left. I'm bringing the gravity lifts online. You can pick me up at the terminal at the bottom."

John nodded, and then stepped into the lift. Three floors down he stepped out, and turned to retrieve Cortana from a terminal identical to the one upstairs. Then he readied his weapon and continued on to the room that Cortana indicated on his HUD. If the room was sealed, then even after this extreme amount of time it was possible that something nasty could be alive. John wouldn't be taken by surprise if there was.

The room was the last door on the right. It was larger than others, and considerably thicker. Obviously whatever was kept in here was more powerful than what was in the rest of the building. John carefully pulled the door open, keeping his weapon trained on the opening at all times, and then stepped inside.

The bodies had been preserved. Scattered around the room were the bodies of four Flood combat forms, all laying there as if dead. John didn't take any chances, and quickly moved through the room, placing several rounds into the chest of each of them, just to be sure. Then he noticed the fifth body lying in the corner.

It was human, or at least something similar to human. John couldn't tell for certain, since most of the head and left side of the body had been destroyed by something. The rest of the corpse, however, was clad in extremely advanced combat armor. It bore a vague resemblance to the Spartan's MJOLNIR armor, but John could tell that it was infinitely more advanced. Lying by the dead Forerunner's right hand, however, was something that made this entire trip worth it.

It looked like a Covenant beam rifle, except that it was made of the dull grey Forerunner metal, and had a stock more suited to human physiology. Prying it from the dead fingers, John looked over the weapon. He activated his suit's smart link system, and on his HUD the ammo counter produced a symbol he'd never seen before. It was obviously Forerunner in origin, but he had no idea what it meant.

"Cortana," John asked, "how do I know how much power this thing has?"

"Scanning," the AI replied. "According to the schematics I've got from the armory computer, this weapon should run off of some kind of miniature fusion reactor. The symbol on your HUD doesn't really have an English translation, but there should be an indicator in the stock."

John looked, and sure enough, on the stock was an opaque black bubble. On the side closest to the butt of the weapon was a pressure plate. John knew that this was a method of keeping the weapon tactical in certain forms of combat, as he had seen similar technologies in the UNSC. He pressed the plate, and the black of the bubble dissolved like murky water pushed through a filter. There, in the center of the bubble, was the hazy outline of a bright yellow ball.

"That's… a star," John said. He had an idea of what he was looking at, but his brain refused to let himself believe it.

"Well, I suppose it's a _kind_ of fusion reactor," Cortana said. "It appears to be encased in a time-dilated slipspace field. Even though this weapon's been lying here for millennia, that star probably hasn't burned more than a minute of its fuel. It could probably go on powering this weapon for a few more centuries, even with constant use. We should really take a look around this armory."

Turning, the Master Chief began looking through the room. It was roughly ten meters long by five wide, and was filled with empty racks and overturned weapons carts. Along one wall, however, was an area with six man-sized alcoves. Lights shined down from above, indicating that something used to stand there.

"This must be where they kept the combat armor. Wish they'd left one of those suits behind," Cortana said, wistfully.

"Yeah," John began, when his eye picked up something. He walked over to an upturned cart and lifted it out of the way. Hidden underneath that cart for thousands of years was a lone Forerunner pistol. The Spartan could see where the Covenant had gotten most of their weapon designs. It looked like a Forerunner version of the needler, but the design was more streamlined; the muzzle of the weapon was slightly longer, it was missing the distinctive sharp crystals lining the top of the weapon, and where the Covenant version was heavy and bulky, with a rounded top and bottom, this pistol was barely larger than a UNSC M6 service pistol, and weighed only slightly more. The top and bottom of the weapon was vaguely triangular, and again John found an opaque black bubble on the left side of the weapon. Pressing the panel on the side, the inky blackness faded, revealing the hazy outline of a white-hot star. He let go, and the bubble returned to its opaque state.

The Master Chief didn't know what either weapon did, however, and in combat that could be fatal. To remedy this, he initiated the smartlink between the pistol and his suit, noticed that the same symbol appeared on his HUD, aimed at the cart that had been covering the weapon, and fired. A small red dart flew out of the muzzle and lodged itself into the side of the cart, stayed there for a second, and then detonated. It was exactly like one of the weapons that the guardians on Delta Halo had used, and it was obviously where the Covenant had gotten the idea of the needler.

He placed the pistol on his thigh, and armed the Forerunner rifle. He found that it was almost exactly like the Covenant beam rifle in terms of optics, and had the same zoom features. The Master Chief walked to the back of the room, near the Forerunner body, and sighted in on one of the Flood corpses. He fired, and a bright yellow beam lanced between him and the body. The corpse didn't detonate, but it was blown in two by the force of the beam, and a small area of the floor beneath it melted into glass. Behind his helmet, John smiled.

"If you're done playing with your new toys, let's get to that transporter," Cortana said.

The Master Chief nodded, equipped his assault rifle, and left the armory.


	3. Chapter 3

**1000 hrs local time, Date Unknown (Timestamp Error, Transporter Activation plus four days)**

**Near Unknown Forerunner underground structure, currently SPARTAN base camp**

**Unknown Planet**

Fred crouched at the base of a tree, studying a field map laid out before him. Halsey had been right, the device was a transporter. When they had activated the machine, there was a flash of light, a moment in which time seemed to stand still and a feeling of liquid ice covering them from head to foot, regardless of their armor, and then they were in a room similar to the one they had left, with the only indication of the change being in the anchor crystal. It had been replaced with a blue-green, three pointed crystal that was easily recognizable as a Forerunner artifact. Halsey had wanted to remove it at first, but then realized that it was the only thing that might allow them to use the machine again. It was agreed that it would be best to leave the machine as it was.

That was four days ago. Since then, the Spartans had been reconnoitering the immediate area. The Forerunner structure where they had been transported to was extensive, and it had taken nearly a day just to secure it. When they found the front door, they had realized that it was underground, as the door was located in what looked like a natural cave formation on the side of a mountain. After another half day of studying the local computer system, Dr. Halsey had determined that the cave was, in fact, artificial in nature, and that it was shielded against all kinds of emissions, effectively hiding it from anyone searching from space or by long range sensors.

It made it an effective bunker, with one drawback. It was also shielded against radio waves. To remedy this, the Spartans had placed a radio relay post in the ground at the mouth of the cave. It was a small rod-shaped device that was placed in the ground, and then automatically drilled down to a depth of one half meter. The relay posts were issued to UNSC personnel who were consistently sent on missions where they might not have access to satellite communication technology, and as such were capable of relaying a radio signal an impressive distance.

In another room, Dr. Halsey had found a cut-down version of the replicator machine in the bunker. It did the same thing as the one back on Onyx, with one exception. Halsey concluded that it was a severely limited version of what they had on Onyx. It could replicate things, but it lacked any sort of database or other design materials. It could scan things into the system, make repairs to its structure, and then replicate the object, but it didn't store the scan in anything but a temporary buffer, and was incapable of merging two separate scans, like what Halsey had done to make the MJOLNIR Mk. VII. Still, it gave them an excellent logistical advantage.

The map in front of Fred detailed the area that they had explored thus far. Approximately six kilometers to the south was a small hunting village, surrounded by dense forest that was largely uninteresting. They had been keeping patrols around the village for the past three days, trying to find any evidence of other villages, as well as finding out anything about culture. Dr. Halsey had suggested that they avoid making contact with any of the locals until they were certain that the more primitive people would not become afraid and potentially violent at the sight of such advanced technology.

Two days ago, Fred had sent Tom and Lucy further onto the floodplain southeast of the mountains, where Linda had spied movement along some kind of road. There were apparently traveling merchants making their way from the hunting village, and the two former Beta Company Spartans had caught up to them, and had been providing consistent updates back to base camp since then.

Fred looked to that part of the map. It was set apart from the rest, indicating a distance of roughly thirty kilometers. The merchants had been traveling slow, and Tom and Lucy had easily been able to reach them before the end of their journey. The road ended at what Tom had described at first as a set of monuments. There was a small metal pedestal with several symbols etched into it, and had a large blue-green stone in the center. Roughly four meters beyond that, at the very end of the road, was a large ring-shaped structure erected over a set of stone steps.

Tom had provided a real-time report as one of the merchants approached the pedestal, while the others stopped near the base of the ring's steps and looked up at the structure.

"The merchant at the pedestal is pressing symbols… it looks like they're buttons," Tom had said. "He's pressing symbols in sequence, though it looks almost random. There's five, six, seven… now he's pressing the crystal in the center and… whoa."

For a moment there was silence, and Fred said, "Spartan, report!"

"Sorry, sir," Tom replied. "As soon as the merchant pressed the crystal, the space inside the ring filled with some kind of energy. It projected from the ring almost two meters, then retreated and coalesced into what looks like a vertical pool of water. Wait one… the merchants are walking towards it. They're just walking into the water and… disappearing. I've never heard of anything like this, sir. They're all through… the water effect just dispersed. The merchants are gone, sir, and I think it's safe to say that the ring has deactivated."

"Understood," Fred said. "Hold position and await further instructions."

"Aye, sir."

Fred had then told Tom and Lucy to establish a perimeter around the device and maintain surveillance. They had been there since then, and there had been no further activity around the ring. Tomorrow he would have Ash and Olivia move out to relieve them. Spartans were trained to operate alone for extended periods of time, and with the new MJOLNIR suits, they would be able to function more effectively than they ever had before.

Fred looked at the representation of the distant mystery one last time, and then turned his mind to more pressing tasks. He was in the process of working out the next round of patrols when his radio activated.

"This is Sierra-Bravo Two-Niner-Two to base, over," Tom said.

"Base here," Fred replied.

"Sir, that weird ring thing just started spinning around. I think it's activating again."

"Acknowledged," Fred said. "Any indication of who's controlling it?"

Tom replied, "No, sir. It's being activated from the other side, wherever that is… Standby, base."

Fred waited a few moments, and then Tom started speaking again. This time, however, he sounded unsure.

"Sir, some kind of aircraft just came through. Very advanced, and it activated some kind of active camouflage almost as soon as it emerged. I'm sorry, sir, I have no idea what heading it's on."

Fred replied, "Understood. Send me your armor's video of the unknown, and then maintain surveillance of the ring. Let me know the instant there's any more activity."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Fred then switched to the encrypted squad channel.

"All Spartans, cancel patrols. Rendezvous at base camp immediately, and maintain active camouflage procedures while en route."

Green acknowledgement lights winked on, and Fred pulled up the video of the unknown craft that Tom had sent. It was strange cylindrical shape, definitely an alien design, and from the way it fit through the Ring, it was probably built by the same race. More disturbing, however, was the way it pulled a four-G turn almost straight up, and faded from view as it did. The MJOLNIR armor's scanners were very effective in ground combat, but it had no way to detect a camouflaged aircraft in flight. In fact, nothing the Spartans currently had on hand could do such a thing. They would all have to be very careful until this thing decided to show itself again.

**1245 hrs, February 24, 2553**

**Remains of ancient Forerunner City**

**Unknown Alien World**

It had taken another three days for the Master Chief to reach the center of the city. He had been moving slowly, taking his time, fully aware that no matter how important it was for him to get back to UNSC space, it was more important that he get back in one piece. Nothing on this world had given him much trouble thus far, but in the Master Chief's experience, that didn't mean something nasty wasn't hiding around the next corner.

He was moving down a narrow alley, when he noticed that the area ahead of him opened up into some kind of clearing. He cautiously exited the alley, and found himself looking at a Forerunner monument. A wide street ran in a complete circle around the monument, creating an urban clearing roughly one hundred meters across, with the fronts of every building facing the statue. Inside the circle formed by the street, steps led up to what looked like a circular platform, with the actual statue in the center. The statue's pedestal was square, roughly eight feet in height, and covered in flowing Forerunner script. Atop the pedestal was a Forerunner in shining white full combat armor, feet set shoulder width apart, and arms held wide above its head. Between those outstretched hands was a faint, flickering hologram of the Milky Way galaxy, somehow still partially powered after all this time. The statue's helmeted, expressionless visage stared into that glowing image, and managed to convey a sense of awe or respect for all the space that the Forerunners had held dominion over.

In spite of himself, the Spartan ascended the stairs, entranced by the monument, and stood at the base of the pedestal, looking up at the statue. Great care had obviously been taken in forming this image, made evident by the precise and minute detail of the statue. It was made of silvery metal, possibly the same material that actually made up Forerunner combat armor, and the armor itself held similarities to the MJOLNIR armor that John now wore. There were also many differences to the statue. The plating was obviously thicker, and held odd, possibly aesthetic protrusions at most of the major joints, and the helmet itself was incredibly ornate, almost on par with the unique helms that the Elite counselors wore. It's most haunting feature, however, was its structure. It was obviously made for a humanoid figure, and John's mind flashed back to the control room of the newly-remade Installation 04, when Guilty Spark had revealed what John had already suspected: That humanity _was _the descendants of the Forerunners.

John lowered his gaze to the pedestal, wondering over the ornate, tantalizing script for a moment, and then looked at a section set apart from the rest, centered above the text. He'd never seen those symbols before, and they called out to him, fairly singing in his mind.

"Can you translate that?" John asked. He left the question open, saying nothing about how familiar the words felt.

Cortana replied, "Most of it's beyond me. I can translate the symbols, but there are a lot of religious and cultural connotations that I have no point of reference for, so it wouldn't make any sense. I can translate the title, however. That section of text separated from the rest."

"What does it say?" the Spartan asked.

"I think it's the name of the statue," she said, "but I also get the feeling that it's got more significance than that. Translated, the first symbol reads '_Behold'_ or _'Remember'_, and then '_Our Mantle'._ I have no idea what it means, but that's the closest it gets to a normal human language."

John looked back up at the hologram of the galaxy again, and for a single, fleeting moment, he understood exactly what that line of text meant. The terminals on the Ark, the nature of the Halos, the ferocity of the war against the Flood all suddenly made sense. Then, before he could make any sense of it or even put it into words, it was gone, like a dream half-remembered. Shaking his head, the Master Chief turned from the monument and started walking.

"Let's get to the transporter," he said. Cortana said nothing, but dropped a nav marker in front of one of the buildings facing the circle, and the Spartan moved towards it.

The building indicated by the nav point was ordinary; no different than any of the other buildings arrayed around the circle, but the Master Chief's sensors were picking up faint power readings coming from inside, and of course, Cortana had the exact coordinates gleaned from the armory computer.

The Spartan entered the structure cautiously, moving along the walls, never quite touching the faded metal, and kept his weapon at the ready. There was still an active power source somewhere in the building, and if there really was a way to get to a Forerunner safe haven hidden deeper in, then the chances of active defense systems were incredibly high.

Inside, the Master Chief found a series of rooms and laboratories similar to what he had come to expect from Forerunner military installations. The ancient race always seemed to put their most important research facilities in the middle of high-level military installations, for reasons that the Spartan warrior could only guess at. Still, it meant that he was fairly familiar with the general layout of the building. It reminded him of Installation 04, when he had been making his way toward the Control Room. At the end of each hallway was a door, and beyond each of those doors was an abandoned laboratory, its computer consoles long since shut down, and the research conducted forgotten in the distant past. Without the threat of meddling Covenant, rampaging Flood, or irate Sentinels to distract him, the Master Chief found the feeling of the abandoned facility slightly haunting, and more than a little sad. While he had seen many human cities just as abandoned and in worse condition than the one outside, John had lived and worked in the UNSC analogues of this facility. Now, with no war or mission to occupy his mind, the Spartan could imagine scientists working diligently toward some new feature on top of the line equipment, with young, steadfast warriors guarding every door and passageway.

The Master Chief moved slowly, working his way down ramps until he reached the third sublevel. After securing the floor, he came at last to a gravity lift. The lift itself was inactive, but the holoconsole next to it still functioned, if only dimly.

"I think we're getting close," Cortana said. "The transporter should be only a couple levels further down."

Silently acknowledging her statement, the Chief pressed the control to activate the lift, and lights around the edge of the chute lit up. Stepping in, the Spartan felt his stomach rise into his throat as he experienced the now-familiar feeling of a rapid descent on nothing but air. This lift took him down further than any other he had thus far encountered on this world, and the Spartan estimated that he had dropped nearly five hundred meters before he felt his pace slow. As he neared the end of the journey, however, the lift's power grid suffered a small fluctuation, and the gravity field shut down roughly ten feet from the bottom. The Spartan dropped the few feet, his massive form easily absorbing the impact, though the weight of his armor cracked the bottom of the lift, perhaps damaging it permanently.

Shaking his head to clear the momentary disorientation from the drop, the Master Chief commented, "I always knew that would happen sooner or later."

"Quit complaining," Cortana replied. "Look at it this way: at least you weren't at the top of the lift."

John grunted noncommittally, and stepped forward into a large, empty chamber, and found himself standing on a ledge about three meter wide, and extending roughly two meters from the alcove containing the gravity lift. A familiar, two meter wide light bridge extended from the center of the ledge, spanned a chasm that the Chief couldn't see the bottom of, and ended at a nearly identical ledge on the other side. The ledges were the only two features of note in the entire area. There was no other floor, the ceiling was roughly thirty meters over head, and the Master Chief could only see blackness extending beneath him. The walls were covered in orderly, repeating carvings, not inscriptions from what he could tell, but something more functional or aesthetic in nature.

With a damaged gravity lift behind him, and nothing else to see on his small platform, the Master Chief moved to the light bridge. He looked at it carefully for a full minute, looking for any sign that it might cut out unexpectedly, before tentatively putting one foot on the coherent energy. It felt solid, so he put more of his weight on it. Finally, as one final test, he stomped one foot on it several times. Like similar bridges he had encountered on the Halos, this one dispersed the weight of his stomping boot in a nimbus of white light, but otherwise held firm. Mostly satisfied, the Spartan carefully walked fully onto the bridge, and began making his way across.

Eight feet from the end of the bridge, a horizontal beam of metal extended from the far platform. Rising from the beam was the skeletal frame of a holoconsole. The display activated as he neared, and the Chief looked at it for a moment.

"Any ideas?" the Master Chief asked.

"It's probably the controls for this gravity lift," Cortana said.

"Then why's it all the way out here?" the Spartan said, sounding slightly concerned.

Cortana said, "I have no idea, but whatever the reason, it doesn't change the fact that you need to use this console if you're going to activate that lift."

Mentally shrugging, the Master Chief looked for the control that felt right. As usual, one control seemed to jump out in his vision, and it had always been the right one before, so he pressed it. To his left, the gravity lift started flickering. The console itself went blank, and then several lines of Forerunner script flashed into existence, blinking an angry red.

For a moment, John was confused, and then the script made sense. Something was wrong. Very wrong. He tensed his legs to spring to the platform, mere feet away, but just as he tried pushing off, the light bridge blinked out of existence, and he had nothing solid to push against to propel him sideways. Physics took over, and the super soldier fell into the abyss as some kind of fail safe protocol, enacted by a malfunctioning computer, filled the area around the console with white-hot plasma.

John could feel the heat of the plasma even through the insulating layers of his MJOLNIR armor, and could see hundreds of meters down from the light given off. Looking behind him, he could see the plasma quickly working its way down, raising the ambient temperature in the artificial cavern, threatening to ignite the very air around him. Adrenaline began to surge through his bloodstream, and his mind entered that strange phenomenon called Spartan Time. He knew that this pit had an end somewhere, and that if he hit that end at terminal velocity, then the result would be just that- terminal. Looking around at the walls, John sought a way out of the chasm, and found it. There, almost five hundred meters distant, visible now only due to the artificial sun at his back, was a ventilation shaft of some kind. He activated the zoom feature on his helmet, and could tell that the shaft angled further downward, so he'd be able to slow his fall gradually, rather than all at once.

Using the extensive training he'd received on operating in freefall, the Master Chief adjusted his approach vector to line himself up with the shaft as it rapidly approached. The plasma was reaching closer behind him, so he couldn't risk slowing down, and shot like a bullet toward his one chance of survival. Half a second before he entered the shaft, he spread his arms and legs wide, creating as much wind resistance as possible to slow himself down, and then quickly oriented himself feet first to let his legs absorb most of the impact.

He hit the angled floor of the shaft just beyond the entry point, and almost immediately bounced back into the air, rolling midair and catching the ceiling with his back, then continuing to fall further down the shaft. As he fell, bouncing off the sides of the ventilation duct, he reached out and grabbed the walls whenever possible, trying to slow himself down and regain some manner of control. The duct made several twists and turns, messing with the Spartan's up/down orientation. He did know which way he had come from, however, just as he now knew what this shaft's purpose was. It was a vent for the same failsafe plasma that he had been trying to escape from. Even now, a cooler yellow-tinged version of the super-hot flames followed his continued descent, but by now the Master Chief had regained control of his fall, and wasn't being battered nearly as badly.

After nearly forty five seconds of continuous downward travel through the ventilation duct, the Master Chief found the exit. The shaft leveled out from forty five degrees, as it had been through most of the journey, to a ten degree downgrade, and the Spartan slid the final few feet before unceremoniously falling the last two meters to the floor. He landed heavily, and stayed on his back for a moment, knowing what would soon follow. He did not have to wait long. Three seconds after he landed, the remaining pressurized heat from the failsafe protocol, still yellow-white, blasted out of the vent for a full five seconds. John's faceplate completely polarized, and he flipped onto his stomach and closed his eyes, and could _still_ see nothing but white. His back blistered from the heat, and he was forcibly reminded of the fight outside of the Covenant flagship _Ascendant Justice_, when he and the other Spartans had come very close to being vaporized by enemy plasma torpedoes. Some of his Spartans had been too close.

After a seeming eternity of heat and memories, the torrent abated. The Master Chief slowly got to one knee and shook his head, clearing his vision.

"Well, that was quite the ride," Cortana quipped, trying to lighten the mood.

The Master Chief ignored the comment, and took stock of his weapons. His battle rifle and the Forerunner-built weapons had somehow survived the intense heat, and his ammo supplies hadn't cooked off, a testament to UNSC safety engineering, but he had been forced to let go of his assault rifle when he entered the ventilation shaft. Now he looked around for it, and found its blackened form a few feet in front of him, just below the vent. It was scorched in several areas, and the onboard computer and ammo display took some time to boot up, but it otherwise seemed none the worse for wear.

Satisfied with his armaments, the Master Chief then took stock of his surroundings. He was in an antechamber of some kind, he estimated its size at twenty meters square, and he saw carvings in the walls identical to the ones in the walls around the light bridge. He recognized these now as a cleverly disguised form of plasma nozzle. To the right of the vent he had exited was the very gravity lift that he had tried to turn on, and there was another ventilation shaft on the other side. Looking up, the Spartan saw a third of these vents set into the ceiling, although that one was sealed by a solid plate of metal, making it almost indistinguishable from the rest of the ceiling.

As he looked around, Cortana spoke up.

"It looks like this room has a function similar to the one upstairs," she said. "It must be some kind of failsafe device to keep the Flood from spreading to the Forerunner's new safe haven."

"Then why did it try to kill us?" John asked. "I thought Forerunner devices could tell the difference between someone who's been infected and someone who hasn't."

Cortana replied, "Usually, they can. While you've been busy keeping us alive- nice job, by the way- I've been going back over the video logs of that message just before the bridge shut off. Using a growing database of Forerunner script that I've been compiling since we've been here, I managed to translate it. It was a warning of some kind of malfunction, which activated the failsafe protocol, despite the lack of Flood presence, and that caused another power fluctuation that, in turn, caused the bridge to collapse. Lucky thing, too."

"Agreed," the Master Chief grunted. "So, where's this transporter supposed to be?"

"It should be just through that door over there," she said, indicating the only door in the room, directly across from the gravity lift.

The Master Chief walked cautiously to the door and, with a tenuous glance at the nozzles on the walls, palmed the opening mechanism. Thankfully, the door worked, and the Spartan passed into an empty hall, again lined with plasma projectors. After several twists and turns, with no other signs of an exit, the Master Chief came to a door at the end of the passage. Stepping through, he found himself in another empty room. This one was smaller than the antechamber where he had exited the shaft, and looked like it could hold somewhere between fifty and a hundred normal sized humans, perhaps a few more if they pushed. Each wall had two strips of vertical glowing panels bisecting it, and on the right wall (north, if John's assault rifle compass was functioning correctly) was a small, rectangular raised platform, with a console set against the wall. Other than the typical Forerunner markings carved into the walls, the rest of the room was featureless. With no other immediately available options, John walked up to the console. Unlike the typical blue with orange controls that the Forerunners seemed to prefer, this one was orange, and had yellow and blue controls. Again, a single symbol seemed to jump out to his consciousness, almost begging to be touched. Just above the controls was a large socket of some kind, with a very exotic crystal plugged into it. It was made mostly of what appeared to be slivers of orange crystal, with a few red and green ones scattered throughout. The whole gestalt glowed with a dim, inner yellow light.

"What is it?" the Master Chief asked.

"A power source, if I had to guess," Cortana said. "I couldn't say what form of power, though. It's definitely not Forerunner- the design's all wrong. It doesn't look like it has much of a charge left, either. It's probably been running this entire facility for thousands of years. If you turn it on, it probably won't have any power left at all."

"So, this is a one way trip," the Chief said.

"Pretty much."

The Master Chief reached out and touched the activation control, and the door snapped shut even as planes of blue-white light appeared against each wall, as well as the floor and ceiling and started making their way to the opposite wall.

"It's a scanner," Cortana said. "The Forerunners were really paranoid that the Flood would breach their last haven!"

The scanning fields passed over the Master Chief, leaving his extremities tingling slightly, but otherwise he was unharmed. As soon as the scanners reached the wall opposite their starting points, they winked out, and the unmistakable sound of energy building up filled the room.

Just as the sound reached its apex, Cortana said, "Here we go!"

The room flashed white, the machine started powering down, and the door opened behind them. The Master Chief looked around, confused.

"Did it work?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," Cortana replied. "I would have expected transit to take at least _some _time, and there should have been some noticeable change in scenery…"

"There was," the Chief said as he looked down at his assault rifle. Whereas before the compass had indicated that the control station was against the north wall, it now indicated that they were facing the _south_ wall.

"So either it worked as advertised, or it just fried all your electronics," Cortana quipped.

"You're still here," the Chief shot back.

"Touché."

The Master Chief stepped out of the room, and now knew for certain that the device had worked. A spiral ramp led upwards from the door to a point roughly three hundred meters up. Without preamble, he readied the assault rifle and began walking.

**1725 hrs, August 16, 2006**

**Native Hunting Village**

**Planet M2R-753**

The last few hours had passed too quickly for Sheppard and his team. They had spent several hours talking to Belleron about what the hunters had seen in the wilderness, and trying to gather more intel on what they were up against. Ronon had spent a considerable amount of time speaking to the Runner, a man by the name of Effriit, learning what he could about the specific Wraith hive that was on the hunt.

To Sheppard's annoyance, intelligence was scarce. The villagers had been seeing strange specters flitting about in the trees, and had described them as "shadows in daylight, bending the light as if one were looking through water." That didn't sound like Wraith images to John, but the villagers wouldn't take them to the door until the specters were gone. Still, something didn't feel right about the whole situation.

Time was also against them. While they were sharing an evening meal with Belleron and the other hunters, dusk had fallen. Belleron explained that the days were getting short with the onset of winter.

"It's good for hunting," he had said, "the larger game animals tend to start bedding down as soon as the sun sets, which gives us the advantage. Especially this year, as the land indicates it could be a rough winter."

That, however, did not help the Atlantis team as they stepped outside the village boundaries, led by Kallar.

Grabbing the team's attention, Sheppard said, "Alright, here's what we're going to do. First, we'll head to the Jumper and get the night vision goggles; I have a feeling this could take a while. Then, Kallar, I want you to take us to where the hunters have been seeing these 'Wraith'. Understood?"

Kallar nodded gravely. Sheppard could see the nervousness in the young man's eyes.

"Relax, Kallar, you've got us with you," Sheppard said, trying to calm the hunter's fears.

"We will not let any harm come to you or your village," Teyla added.

After a moment Kallar took a deep breath, exhaled, and then said, "We have been seeing the specters a ways west of camp. Where is your ship located?"

With a sinking feeling starting to take form in his gut, John said, "West."

Ronon and Kallar took point, Teyla took the rear and the team moved off into the quickly darkening forest.

**Approx. 1730 hrs local time, Date Unknown (Timestamp Error, Transporter Activation plus four days)**

**Near Indigenous Village**

**Unknown Planet**

Ash watched as the off-worlders and their native guide trooped into the forest, passing mere meters from his position. Once they were out of earshot, he activated his active camouflage systems and started to follow.

"Sierra Golf Zero-Nine-Nine to base, over," Ash said, activating his comm as he trailed the newcomers.

"Base here, report," Fred replied.

"Activity at the southwest corner of the indigenous village," Ash said. "Four new contacts. Clothing and equipment is more advanced than that of the locals. Possible pilots from that alien craft. They've entered the forest on heading two, three, seven, direction west. Orders?"

"Maintain visual contact," Fred ordered, "but do not, repeat, do _not_ make contact or risk detection. Just follow them. Use active camouflage sparingly- we believe the locals may have taken notice of our activities."

"Aye, aye, sir," Ash replied as he shut down his camouflage and dropped back another couple of meters. He would have to rely on his training to remain unseen.

**1755 hrs, August 16, 2006**

**1.6 kilometers west of Native Hunting Village**

**Planet M2R-753**

Teyla was becoming increasingly nervous as the team moved through the darkness. Full night had come, and the shadows made it difficult to see. This was no hindrance to her, Ronon, the native Kallar, and even Sheppard to a lesser extent. They were used to relying on their other senses to tell them what was hiding in the shadows. Rodney, on the other hand, for all the experience and training he had gained during his time as a field operative, did not trust the darkness or know how to become one with it. He crashed and stumbled through the underbrush, not as badly as he had a year ago, but still more than enough to give away their position to the Wraith, if the creatures were indeed in the area.

Yet even McKay, with his lack of forest knowledge, was aware of the wrongness of the situation, though he knew not why. Teyla did. She had noticed it first, as the disturbance came from the rear of their formation. It was too quiet. Even as loud as McKay was, the nightlife usually resumed their song shortly after the group had passed. Now, however, there was something amiss. Every time she looked behind the group and strained her senses, she could tell that not all of the insects had begun chirping again. She couldn't pinpoint where the problem was, but it seemed as if there was a pocket of darkness a short distance behind them, always moving, where no natural life stirred.

If it was a normal person, even one of the experienced hunters of the village tailing them, Teyla would have been able to locate where they were hiding. A curious child would have been even easier to pick out, as she had done so many times when her native Athosian children would follow the hunting parties, not wanting to wait for the day when they could join the other hunters in providing food for the village.

Here, however, Teyla could sense the general area of silence, but she could see nothing in it. The trees and plant life moved as normal, and the shadows did not appear to conceal any strange shapes. Even to the Athosian warrior's combat-trained eye, there was no abnormal shape in the shadows. She knew well what a human and even a Wraith looked like when one hid, but here there was nothing out of the ordinary. Except for the abstract lack of a fundamental, primal part of the forest. The further the team progressed, the longer the feeling stayed with Teyla, and she became increasingly uneasy.

As Teyla watched, the others became aware of the problem. Up ahead, Ronon looked like a cornered animal, covering every possible angle with his field of fire, trying to see everywhere at once. Kallar was scared out of his wits; the native man had never experienced what it felt like to be the hunted, rather than the hunter. Sheppard was the calmest of them all, maintaining a cool and professional air even as he shifted his stance into a combat crouch, presenting as small a target as possible while still maintaining full mobility.

Conversely, Rodney was fearfully peering into every shadow, not understanding exactly what he was looking for, but knowing that there was terror present. Thanks to his training and intelligence, however, he managed to keep calm and stay with the group, rather than trying to strike out on his own and try and outrun their unknown stalker. Still, the way he gripped his pistol was always a source of worry to the more seasoned members of the team.

_There!_ Teyla halted and raised her weapon as she happened to glance behind them at just the right moment. It was almost impossible to know what she saw, however. It was too big to be a man, and large for even a Wraith. Its shape was also indistinct- it moved like a shadow over a shadow, almost identical to the movement of the foliage around it, and it made no noise as it moved. The glimpse lasted no more than a split second, and the shadow was gone almost before it was there. After a moment, Teyla wasn't even certain she had truly seen anything at all.

Still, she had learned long ago to listen to her instincts on such matters. Cautiously, she activated her radio and spoke softly into it.

"John," she said, "I do not believe we are alone."

After a moment's pause, Sheppard replied, "What is it?"

"I am uncertain," Teyla returned, "but I believe I saw something following us. It does not look like any Wraith we have encountered before, but I would not want to take chances. We should increase our pace and keep a watchful eye on our surroundings."

"Agreed," Sheppard said. "Alright everyone, we're going to speed up. We've got to reach the jumper before whatever's out here decides to stop toying with us."

The team increased their speed immediately, jogging through the night as quickly as the scant starlight allowed. Something knew that they were out there, and the element of surprise was against them. Caution and stealth were no longer their primary concerns.

**Approx. 1755 hrs local time, Date Unknown (Timestamp Error, Transporter Activation plus four days)**

**1.6 kilometers west of Indigenous Village**

**Unknown Planet**

Ash silently cursed himself. He had been too slow! Their rear guard had seen him! He was fairly certain that the sharp-eyed warrior woman at the back of the small formation had only caught a glimpse of his shoulder as he moved to new cover, but it was still too close for comfort. They were already instinctively aware of his presence, and thus on a heightened state of alert. He couldn't risk being discovered before he knew where they were going.

He began following more cautiously as the group broke into a jog, confirming his fears, when his comlink activated.

"This is Green One," Tom said, using the new team organization that Fred had issued after the arrival of the alien craft. "I have activity at the Ring. Standby… Count two aircraft and incoming infantry. Ground troop count pending full force deployment, over."

"Green One, this is Blue One," Fred replied. "Requesting any additional information on incoming forces."

"Definitely not human, sir," Tom reported. "Not Covenant, either. Alien forces are humanoid, green skin, white hair, little-to-no armor on most. Weapons are of unknown configuration or capability. Recommend caution if they become hostile.

"Sir, the Ring has deactivated. Alien force count confirmed at sixty infantry, two aircraft. End report."

"Report received, Green One," Fred said. "Alien aircraft sighted moving toward the village. Green Team, maintain surveillance on the Ring. Red One, continue following unknown human factor, and have the rest of your team establish a secure perimeter around the indigenous village. All Spartans, stealth is paramount at this time. Do not expose yourself unless you receive clearance or your position is compromised. Blue Team, out."

Ash flashed his acknowledgement light, then contacted Red Team, the surviving members of Team Saber.

"Red Two and Three, this is Red One," he said, "Set up a perimeter around the village as you see fit. Do not compromise stealth, but keep those people secure."

Two acknowledgement lights answered him, and Ash continued to follow the strange human team, trusting the safety of the village to Olivia and Mark. He wished Holly and Dante were still with them, or even Team Katana. Back in the structure on Onyx, they had found a sublevel that had a set of stations similar to the room where they had originally found Katana. There were consoles set up to monitor their vitals while in that weird stasis chamber, but Dr. Halsey had been unable to find any way to disable the field and wake them up.

With no small amount of regret, Fred had deemed the location secure enough to leave them, and Doctor Halsey had left detailed instructions on how to run the transporter and contact the rest of the Spartans in the event that the stasis fields shut down on their own. Ash knew that the plan was to get help and then find a way back to Onyx to free them, but it still didn't feel right to leave Katana behind like that. Shaking himself out of his musings, the young Spartan continued to cautiously follow the unknown humans.

They had traveled no more than a hundred meters further west when the large man on point held up his fist and the others froze. Ash was surprised. That was a standard Earth hand signal, and the rest of the team had responded accordingly. It seemed highly unlikely that another people would develop the exact same hand signals for their military operations, though it was hard to make any kind of real estimate based on that one hand motion.

The others heard the noise moments later- a high pitched buzzing sound, skimming low over the treetops. The human team broke into a run shortly after that, becoming even more alert than they were before. To Ash, it looked like they expected combat, and wanted to get somewhere before they made contact with their enemy.

Moments later, Ash heard something approaching from both his left and right, and moved further behind the team, melting into the underbrush. Two alien figures were sneaking around to the rear of the human formation. They were too quiet for the humans up ahead, but Ash's enhanced senses easily picked up on their movements. Switching over to infrared, he counted six of the aliens total and easily tracked their body heat through the cool forest ground foliage. Based on Tom's descriptions, these were members of that new alien factor. How, though, did they manage to cover almost thirty kilometers on foot in the span of a few minutes? Unless…

"Red One to Blue Lead, over," Ash said.

"This is Blue Lead. Report."

"Sir, alien ground troops present at my location. Be advised; suspect the aircraft have troop deployment capabilities, over."

"Acknowledged, Red One. Main alien force is moving toward your position. Blue Team is pacing them. We should be with you shortly."

Ash flashed his acknowledgement light, and then Olivia activated her comm.

"This is Red Two!" she said, sounding uncharacteristically concerned. "Those two alien aircraft just buzzed the village, and deployed ground troops inside our perimeter via some kind of energy transporter. They have begun a full assault on the village! Count six infantry, and it looks like that's more than enough. Weapons appear to be some kind of neural disruptor. They don't leave any marks, but the villagers are dropping like flies. The aliens are going from tent to tent; it looks like they're searching for something. Request permission to engage, over."

"Blue Lead," Ash said, "Indigenous village is under attack. Aliens appear hostile and are exhibiting Covenant-like tactics. Red Team is in position and requesting permission to engage. Orders, sir?"

"This is Blue Lead to Red Two and Three," Fred said, jumping the chain of command and contacting Olivia and Mark directly. "You are clear to engage, but do not, repeat, _do not_ compromise stealth or reveal your positions. Do you understand?"

Two acknowledgement lights winked on, and Ash refocused on his situation. On his motion tracker, the yellow dots representing the unknown aliens turned red as Fred updated the tactical situation, indicating that they were now considered hostile. This was the first combat situation that any of the Spartans had encountered in months. To Ash, it felt like he was finally home.

Up ahead, the large human on point must have caught sight of one of the ambushers, because he opened fire with an energy weapon unlike any Ash had ever heard of before. The aliens returned fire, and the small team immediately realized they were surrounded. Their formation shifted slightly, the rear guard pulling up closer to the front of the formation, while the point man seemed to lose all semblance of military bearing and discipline, and simply charged the nearest alien, firing as he went…


	4. Chapter 4

**1300 hrs local time, Date Unknown (Timestamp Error, Transporter Activation plus six hours)**

**Outside Forerunner underground installation**

**Unknown Planet**

The Master Chief walked through the last doorway and exited the Forerunner installation. Looking at his new surroundings, he discovered that the Forerunner structure housing the transporter that brought him here was buried deep under the mountain that he now stood on. It had taken several hours to find his way out, working his way along a central passage, moving up dozens of levels, and passing scores of empty labs and storage rooms. After the first few levels, it had become apparent that the mountain was a foothold position on this new world, designed to house and support either a moderate sized expeditionary force, or a significant number of refugees.

Now that he was outside, the Master Chief assessed his new situation. He stood outside the door in a peaceful and serene pine forest roughly three hundred meters below the tree line. The trees were tall and ancient, and the foliage was dense. Off to his left was an outcropping of rock, providing a view of the surrounding terrain. The Master Chief moved onto the outcropping, dropping to a crouch as he did so to avoid being noticed.

The day was bright, and the skies were clear and blue, providing an excellent vista and giving the Spartan a commanding twenty five mile line of sight. He looked out across a lush, forested floodplain with several tributary rivers and streams leading from the mountains to a band of liquid silver off in the distance. Dotted along these waterways were a number of small, pre-industrial villages. The Master Chief saw no evidence of even rudimentary industrialization or water-based trade. Of interest, however, was a single dirt road that led to every visible settlement, much like the system of roadways that the UNSC established on every colony world. None of the settlements looked like they housed more than a couple hundred people.

"Suggestions?" John asked as he peered down at the villages.

"They probably aren't Forerunner," Cortana replied, "but they may be descendants, or even a native indigenous people. Either way you probably don't want to expose yourself to them. You might be able to sneak down amongst them, however, and gather information covertly. You up for it?"

The Spartan allowed himself to smirk at her coy remark, then moved back from the ledge, and began making his way down the mountainside.

**1800 hrs, August 16, 2006**

**1.7 kilometers west of Native Hunting Village**

**Planet M2R-753**

Sheppard knew they were in trouble the moment the Wraith opened fire. The dart had deployed five Wraith drones and one of their free-thinking commanders, who had managed to surround the team and spring the trap as the humans had become more and more jumpy. The team was still three hundred meters from the jumper, but Sheppard knew that now it might as well be three hundred miles. Still, there was nothing to do but try to make it.

"Take cover and return fire!" he shouted.

Teyla, ever stalwart and vigilant warrior that she was, immediately followed the order and found cover behind a tree, firing at one of the flanking Wraith as she did so. Ronon, on the other hand, had not even waited for the order, and had already taken down the Wraith directly in front of him. It was a valiant effort, but it lacked any chance of success. Without cover or strategy, it was only a matter of time before one of the Wraith managed to put enough stunner rounds in him to break through his berserker-like rage.

McKay, for all the training and experience he had gained while on Sheppard's team, was still first and foremost and scientist and civilian. He managed to drop to one knee, and heard the order to return fire, so he simply started firing randomly into the shadows. He knew that the Wraith were out there, somewhere in the darkness, but as to where and how many, he couldn't say. Sheppard knew he'd have to stay close to Rodney and make sure he didn't look for cover in the wrong direction, but at least there was no fear of the physicist firing on his own teammates. The man had learned at least that much.

The native, on the other hand…

"Kallar, get down!" John yelled, as he took cover behind a log and tried to locate an exposed target.

Kallar, the young native hunter, had drawn a long hunting knife and was standing in the open, wildly looking for an enemy that he could fight. He was young, in his late teens or early twenties, and was of the mindset that only a coward fights from the shadows. Therefore, he was expecting the Wraith, terrors though they were, to come out and fight him as he had always been trained to fight. Every time he saw a vaguely human-shaped shadow move, he would charge a few steps in that direction, only to lose sight of the Wraith as it once again took cover and fired from the shadows.

Sheppard fired a burst, and just barely saw the dark spray of blood as he grazed a target, then turned around to check on Kallar again. He turned just in time to see a Wraith drone sight on the native and fire a single stun round into him. The hunter dropped, and Sheppard took the opportunity to fill the drone with a burst from his P-90. The drone fell, and Sheppard began making his way over the few feet of empty ground that separated him from the unconscious hunter.

"Everyone fall back to my position!" Sheppard said as he grabbed Kallar by the collar of his leather jerkin and began dragging him back to the fallen log. Teyla and Rodney moved to cover the Air Force officer, and together they made their way to the relative safety of the log.

Ronon, on the other hand, finished the Wraith he was engaged with by pulling a concealed knife and cutting the fiend's throat before moving to follow his commander's order. He was twenty feet from Sheppard's position, and fired several shots from his energy weapon as he ran. When he turned to jump the log, however, three stun rounds were fired from his blind side and struck him in the back. He tumbled headlong into cover, dazed and out of the fight for the moment.

Sheppard saw what happened, and then paused as he recounted the number of enemies. Ronon had killed two, Teyla had taken down the one on their six, and he had killed the one that shot Kallar. That left two Wraith from the ambush. John silently swore as he peaked over the log and confirmed his fears – there were more Wraith moving to reinforce the ambushers. A lot more.

"What are we gonna do?" McKay asked as Teyla checked on Ronon and Kallar.

Sheppard fired off a few rounds, then ducked down as stun rounds sang by overhead.

"I don't know," he said. "Something tells me our luck may have just run out."

**2030 hrs local time, Date Unknown (Timestamp Error, Transporter Activation plus five days)**

**Outskirts of Indigenous Trade Village**

**Unknown Planet**

The fruit farmer was busy packing up his stall, storing away his wares at the end of market day. It had been a profitable season for the winter fruits, and the late spring weather promised a bountiful summer this year, as well. His sons were tending the fields in his home town some miles away, and his wife was at home with his daughter to keep everything in order while he sold his surplus in the trade village. The day had been good, and had seen many coins pass into his possession, but the some-time shopkeeper also had his worries. He continuously glanced into the growing shadows as the evening wore on. Thieves were always a concern, especially in the trade villages, as any children who were orphaned would often make their way from their home settlements looking for the opportunity of a carelessly guarded fruit or loaf of bread. At one point the farmer thought he saw the waning sunlight reflect off of something in the shadows next to his shop, but after a moment he remembered that the man next to him was selling silver and gold trinkets, and decided that the reflection must have been from one of those.

The Master Chief adjusted slightly, ensuring that the orange light of sunset wouldn't reflect off of his visor. It was difficult for a soldier of his size to stay hidden amongst the short stalls and wooden structures during the day, made more so as the shopkeepers were constantly on the lookout for thieves hiding in shadows and around corners. Still, once the sun went down and night fell, the people moved indoors and all business was conducted there. While there was still and abundance of activity and conversation outside as men moved from taverns to inns and back again, trying to find the best venues of the night and meeting with trade partners, the deeper shadows and unconcerned tradesmen made sneaking around and gathering information almost too easy for the Spartan.

Over the course of the last five days, he had gathered an abundance of information, both about the people and their culture. Thankfully, it seemed that every tradesman and bard was bilingual, at least, and traded in a language similar enough to Latin that Cortana could decipher it fairly easily. What appeared to be their common language, however, was some kind of advanced Phoenician dialect that the Spartan couldn't make heads or tails of. It even took Cortana a day and a half before she managed to associate the spoken language with that of the Forerunners on the planet where the _Dawn_ crashed, and compensate for nearly a hundred thousand years of linguistic advancement. Surprisingly, the Latin dialect seemed to have a completely different set of roots, and was in no way associated with the more common language. It was the only evidence of cultural variation in any of the settlements the Master Chief visited, but it was one of the least important discoveries he made.

From listening to bards and storytellers, he had learned that they were, in fact, descendants of the Forerunner, and had come here in antiquity to escape some unspecified calamity; most likely the Flood and subsequent firing of the Halo installations. While they were aware of technology and that their ancestors had walked amongst the stars, they lived in a fairly anarchic, pre-industrial society. Each town had either a chieftain of some kind, or an elder who acted as an arbitrator for disputes between farmers and tradesmen, but there was no form of organized government, nor were there any established written treaties of any kind. The entire region was organized like a province, but with no higher governing bodies. Denizens arrested thieves if they could catch them, and then the chieftain or elder would administer justice.

Unfortunately, the actions of the people also raised some questions in the Master Chief's mind. The children seemed forbidden from being outside after dark, and were not allowed to wander more than a few dozen meters of any settlement. Even the adult hunters made certain they were back in town long before sunset, never following a hunt overnight. While this would ensure that game was never scarce, the behavior of the hunters the Master Chief had followed suggested that they did this more out of a sense of fear than an organized form of wildlife preservation. Likewise, all nightlife activities halted approximately two hours after dark. To this end, the Master Chief saw a level of teamwork normally absent among civilians. Whenever a man was too drunk to make it home in a reasonable amount of time, or stayed out too late, someone would invariably leave their home to help the man reach his dwelling or, after a certain hour, would invite the drunk into their home to spend the night.

"This whole world seems like a borderline utopia," Cortana said after they had observed the same actions for the third night.

"Nearly," the Master Chief agreed, "but something just doesn't add up."

"I agree," Cortana said. "The villagers all seem happy, and crime is surprisingly low, but there's something… off. No dissent at all among the older children and their curfew, the hunters' unwillingness to pursue prey overnight, and a couple of other minor things. It's like their being oppressed by a dictator, but I haven't seen any evidence of law enforcement or military at all."

The Master Chief had only grunted and moved outside the village to get a few hours rest, as there was never anything to see after about midnight. As the next two days passed, the Chief's focus had been on trying to find out what had the villagers so frightened. He had visited three settlements and seen similar behavior in all of them. Curiously, the hunters exhibited the same kind of patterns as the drunks. If they strayed too far from their home villages and couldn't make it back by nightfall, then they would simply make all haste to the nearest settlement, where they would have little trouble finding an inn or private residence that would house them overnight. This led the Master Chief and Cortana to the conclusion that the people's actions were possibly religious in origin, though they had yet to see any kind of organized worship service.

As his fifth day on this new world began to come to a close, the Master Chief began moving away from the market street, a wide thoroughfare line with all-purpose stalls, and towards the inn district, an area of about four blocks on the edge of the village consisting mainly of inns, taverns, and other venues that did most of their business in the evenings.

Just after full dark set in, with two full moons already rising, he saw two small children dash away from the back door of a house on the very edge of the village, and decided to follow them. He had seen this happen a few times, always with children under the age of ten, but had never followed before. Adults always noticed their absence within a few minutes and would set out searching for them, usually finding them in the same areas of nearby forest where they played during the day. He knew this because the adults would usually report to their spouses afterwards, but never mentioned the reason why children in every village had such a curfew. However, the Master Chief knew that older children willingly stayed indoors after dark, and suspected that the young children were given instruction when they were caught, and so decided to follow this time, hoping to overhear a conversation with revealing information.

As expected, the children dashed directly to an area just beyond sight of the village that bore the marks of recent childish activities. There they proceeded to play a strange game of tag. The older of the two, a girl of perhaps eight years, put on a mask made from carved wood and long strands of bleached straw made to resemble white hair, and chased the younger, a boy of four or five, around the area for a few minutes. The boy would run, and pretend to hide behind trees and stumps until the girl caught him. Then they would wrestle for a short time, the girl growling savagely and the boy screaming in mock terror, before the boy would fall limp and pretend to die while the girl stood above him in victory. Then they switched roles, and the game began again.

From his hiding place in the crux of a massive, ancient oak tree, the Master Chief and Cortana watched in fascination, making sure John's helmet cam was recording everything. The game began to make a strange sort of sense after the second round. The mask seemed to represent a beast or monster, who hunted humans, and against which there was no perceived defense. The conclusion was always the same: whoever was playing the monster always caught the prey, and always won the struggle after. At first, the Master Chief thought they just weren't creative enough to add some variety to the game, but discarded that idea the second time the small boy was caught. They had been giggling and laughing as they ran, but when the girl in the mask growled savagely and tackled him, her mask got very close to his face, and the Master Chief saw real fear cross the boy's features, and his scream was not one of jest as it had been before. The girl continued her assault, and soon the two of them were laughing again, but the Spartan hiding in the massive tree a few meters away had seen enough. To these children, whatever they were playing was real enough to them. They played no variation of the game because there was none. The nightmarish creature the mask represented was probably from some local legend told to children, possibly to ensure they stayed in the village.

Soon, though, the Master Chief was forced to again revised his hypothesis about the local legends. After about twenty five minutes of watching the children play, their father tore through the underbrush, drawn by the young boy's screams. In the man's right hand was a hunting knife held in a reverse grip, with the blade pointing toward the ground, and in his eyes there was very real terror for what he thought he'd see. Judging by the man's weapon and his leather clothing, he was probably a local hunter.

As soon as their father entered the small clearing, both children immediately stopped their antics and stood. The girl removed her mask, and both she and the boy cast their eyes to the ground, ashamed. Instead of yelling or berating them, however, the huntsman ran up to them and fell to his knees, hugging them both for several long moments. Finally, he leaned back far enough to hold them at arm's length.

"What have I told you about playing in the forest at night?" he asked.

"It's dangerous…" the boy said.

"That the Wraith come at night to feed on the life of the unwary," the girl replied, obviously quoting part of an oral history or tale.

"But that's why it's so much more fun at night!" the boy insisted. His father seemed bemused by his statement, and smiled wistfully.

"I know," he said, "but that's why it's so dangerous. The Wraith have not come in many years, but they appear as shadows and move swiftly and silently in the dark. We never know when they'll appear, or whether they will hunt on the ground, or steal the unwary from our very streets on a beam of light as they scream by overhead. That is why when the sun goes down you must stay indoors, where your mother and I can keep you safe. Understood?"

"Yes, father," they both replied.

"Good, now let's…" he paused, listening intently. The Master Chief heard the sound, too, though he had noticed it a few seconds before. There was a high pitched whine coming from somewhere above the light cloud cover in the sky. That meant that whatever aircraft was making the sound was subsonic, but it was still out of place in this pre-industrial society.

The sound continued to grow, and the hunter seemed to be growing more and more worried as the unknown aircraft continued to draw closer. His eyes darted from shadow to shadow to sky, looking for some unknown terror. The very moment that he looked directly at the Master Chief's hiding place, a cloud shifted from in front of the larger of the moons, and its light glinted off of the Spartan's faceplate. The super soldier adjusted immediately, but the hunter had already caught a glimpse of something vaguely man-shaped that did not look human at all.

"By the gods of Old! NO! Run!" he yelled, even as he picked his two children up as if they weighed nothing, one under each arm, and sprinted back towards the village with a speed that only adrenaline-induced terror could make manifest.

At the same time, the Master Chief saw a trio of arrowhead-shaped aircraft emerge from the clouds and enter an approach vector for the nearby village. It also happened to pass directly over the Spartan's position.

The super soldier quickly abandoned his post in the ancient oak and began moving back toward the village, maintaining visual contact with the civilians he had been watching. He stayed out of their sight, and made certain that the strange alien ships would pass by overhead several meters to his right, directly over the civilians.

The hunter made good time, even burdened as he was with his two children, but the Master Chief was able to keep pace with him easily. Suddenly, the man let out a short, sharp shriek of terror and turned sharply to his left, somehow managing to stay upright and not drop either of the children. At the same time, the Spartan hiding a few meters away began seeing more of what had scared the man.

Strange, ghost-like figures were flitting through the dark forest, just at the edge of normal human night vision. They appeared insubstantial, and had no discernable form aside from a vague human resemblance. The Master Chief couldn't be certain, but they appeared to be herding the hunter and his cargo in a particular direction. They also targeted the Spartan, and nearly danced through the forest around him. While he was certain that these spectral figures would be terrifying for a local hunter, John wasn't at all impressed, and to demonstrate that to anyone watching, he lashed out at one figure as it dashed by only a half meter from him.

His arm flashed out, his assault rifle in hand, and smashed through the specter, dispersing it utterly.

"Any idea what they are?" he asked, making certain that his helmet speakers were still off.

"It looks like some kind of holographic projection," Cortana replied. "It's extremely advanced, considering that there's no readily apparent projection system. I'd imagine they're all coming from those fighters, but still…" she trailed off, dedicating some of her run-time to pondering the technical details.

The Master Chief continued to follow the hunter on his mad dash through the forest. The man was still aiming in the general direction of the village, but it was clear that the specters were having their intended effect. Instead of moving in a direct line for his home on the southern edge of the village, he was slowly being herded towards the western edge, a full half kilometer further away.

From the actions of their ghostly attackers, it was clear to the Spartan and his artificial hitchhiker that whoever was controlling the images was aware of him, and was trying to get him away from the hunter and his offspring. Compared to facing down armies of bloodthirsty Covenant and moving through entire hives of nightmarish Flood, no mere trick of the light, however advanced, would faze him.

Some seconds after the fighters had passed overhead, and as the hunter continued his mad dash through the darkness, the Master Chief heard the familiar sounds of an air raid echoing over the treetops- the aliens had reached the village, and were indeed hostile. Every once in a while he could even glimpse one of the ships through the trees. Sometimes they would strafe the ground with a sickeningly familiar green-blue plasma, and other times they would be making runs with some kind of steady white light emitting from the belly of the craft. The Spartan could only catch moments of the overhead attackers, but it was enough. There was no hope for these people. There was no defense the villagers could mount against such an attack, no way for them to do anything but run and hide, hoping the carnage would be over soon.

Even John, with his years of training, decades of combat experience, and advanced modern weaponry, could do little but watch. He had no intel on these things, had no idea how to commandeer or pilot one of the strange fighters. He thought about the Forerunner rifle attached to his back, but quickly discarded that idea. He had no clue where to aim, and if he did fire and didn't shoot it down, then he'd accomplish nothing but give away his position and alert his enemies to his capabilities. No, the best thing he could do now was keep this man and his two children safe.

_Easier said than done, _he thought as the man made another turn at breakneck speed, even as one of the fighters angled away from the village and vectored to intercept the wayward hunter, its unknown white beam active and caressing the ground as it passed.

With only seconds to act, John first tried his safest bet. He moved up on the man's right side, slightly in front of him, and moved into the terrified man's visual range. As expected, the hunter, children still slung under his arms, let out a terrified gasp and broke left, away from the beam. Unfortunately, the fighter managed to adjust its vector and stay on course, now only about fifty meters away.

Now out of options, John-117 acted. He didn't think about the massive stupidity of his stunt, or how foolish it was for a thirty year combat veteran to not consider the consequences of his actions. The half ton of armored man and machine moved forward at speeds normally associated with ground-based vehicles, and closed the seven meters between him and the hunter just ahead of the fighter's beam. John reached out and, as gently as possible for a behemoth in a combat zone, place a hand between the hunter's shoulders and gave him a push. The fleeing man flew roughly three feet and landed in the forest loam finally losing hold of his precious cargo.

John, fully under the effects of Spartan Time, was able to ascertain that the both the man and his children were safe from the beam, and that he, himself, was not. Out of time, he reached down to his right hip and grasped the Forerunner-made pistol the hung there just as the beam flashed over him. The world turned white, and then…

**Approx. 1803 hrs local time, Date Unknown (Timestamp Error, Transporter Activation plus four days)**

**Near Village Center, Indigenous Village**

**Unknown Planet**

Spartan-G201, Olivia, knew what to do in combat situations. She had trained hard every day of her life since she was five years old, hardening her body and mind in preparation for the horrors of the war against the Covenant. She knew Spartan tactics and protocol, knew how to move in and out of shadows without being seen, and how to walk on even loose gravel and hardly make a sound. She had seen the videos of the original SPARTAN-II's, and their heroic careers in the face of annihilation, as well as the doomed missions of both Alpha and Beta company's SPARTAN-III's.

She knew combat, too. Her first blooding had been against Forerunner drones, who's learning capacity, adaptability, and tenacity was even greater than the Covenant. Then she had seen real combat against Humanity's hated foe, the Covenant themselves, and had barely escaped a hopeless situation against them, as well.

Still, she had never seen anything like these monsters. Unlike the Covenant, they appeared similar to humans at first glance, just with greenish skin and stark white hair. Their tactics and movements, however, were wholly unfamiliar. They moved as if they didn't care about being seen, and had no fear of anything. The Covenant Grunts used their strange pack-like formations, moving about in seemingly random directions, but always covering each other's backs. Jackals would interlink their large energy shields and slowly move forward while snipers gave them cover from afar, and Elites would move either as individuals or formations in brilliant strategic offensive and defensive maneuvers. These green-skinned man-beasts, however, used no discernable tactics. They split formation as soon as their ingress point was cleared, and each individual moved off in a different direction, making no use of any available cover. While it was true that the indigenous people weren't much of a threat in the face of their superior technology, the beings still wore little armor, and the villagers' crossbows could still be a deadly threat to an unwary warrior.

As per her orders, Olivia stuck to the shadows and moved amongst the village huts. Mark was somewhere on the other side of the village, doing the same things. Olivia wasn't worried about him. He was an excellent shot, and no slouch at cover and concealment, either. While Team Saber had some of the most individual training specialties of any of Delta Company, they had made certain to cross-train with each other so no one was left behind or became a liability.

As Olivia rounded another small hut, the female Spartan beheld a sight that she knew would haunt her for a long time to come. A young boy, perhaps three years older than herself, was being held down by one of the attackers five feet from her hiding spot. The alien was easily six and a half feet tall, and had a physique that almost approached a SPARTAN-III. Its face was covered in a bone-like mask, and it wore a thick leather shirt over its torso. The arms were bare, showing off the heavily muscled limbs. As she watched, the alien slammed its right hand into the boy's chest, and… something… happened. The boy began to age before Olivia's eyes, reaching his mid-twenties in only a few seconds.

The Spartan moved before the damage could become any greater. Her right hand already gripped her field knife, as the rifle would give away her position. Crossing the five feet separating them in the blink of an eye, Olivia sliced the mono-edged blade through the creature's right elbow, severing the limb and leaving the hand attached to its victim's chest. She brought the blade back in a slash across the thing's exposed throat, and her left hand grabbed the severed arm just below where the elbow used to meet. Worried more for the victim's life than his health, she ripped the arm from the wound on the boy's chest and clubbed the alien across the face with its own hand. The blade of the knife followed a split second later, and sheathed itself in the middle of the monstrous alien's face.

With the thing dispatched, Olivia planted her left boot in the corpse's chest and kicked it off her knife, sending the remains sprawling several feet away. She used the momentum of the motion to begin backpedaling into the shadows again, already on the look out for more targets.

Olahn, the teenage boy now trapped in a man's body, was left trying to figure out what had just happened. The Wraith, as hideous and powerful as the stories told, had just started to feed on him. He could feel the years passing from his body and into the monster, accompanied by terrible pain and the anguish and loss of such an intimate thing as the years of one's life. Suddenly an iridescent green blur had move across the edge of his vision, and before he could even get a good look at what it was, the thing was gone, his chest was on fire, and his Wraith attacker was lying several feet away, dead. He didn't understand how that was possible, but his tortured body decided at that moment to shut down, and Olahn lost consciousness.

Some thirty yards away, near a hut at the north end of the village, Mark, Spartan-G185, was witnessing greatness. Two of the aliens were moving from hut to hut, tearing through the dome-shaped dwellings as they searched for something. As they moved, they scared several villagers, mostly women and children, from their hiding places, who then ran toward the hut Mark was hiding beside.

The two aliens drew near, as they seemed to think their quarry might be hidden within that very dwelling, and Mark prepared to engage. He wasn't supposed to compromise his position or reveal himself to the enemy, but he still readied his assault rifle, prepared to do whatever it took to defend the villagers.

Suddenly, the door-flap to the hut swung up from the inside, and a man stepped out. To Mark's eye, he looked to be between sixty and seventy years old, his blonde hair and beard well-streaked with grey, but he had aged well. He still looked like a stereotypical Viking of old, his arms and chest rippling with muscle beneath the furs and skins he wore. Around his neck was a small medallion with a symbol on it that Mark couldn't make out. It was the weapon in the man's hands, however, that held the Spartan's attention. It was old, very old, and obviously made from Forerunner metals. Mark had seen enough of the strange, super-hard alloy in the several weeks he and the others were trapped in the Forerunner structure on Onyx. The blade was forged into the size and shape of a broadsword, and along the length of the blade was a series of Forerunner symbols that sang in Mark's mind. Oddly enough, as the old man brandished the weapon and took up a ready stance towards the aliens, the symbols seemed to glow a blue-white, just for an instant.

Tearing his eyes away from the tantalizingly familiar Forerunner script, Mark thought quickly. He moved through the shadows and positioned himself on the other side of the aliens, in a position to support the old man if he should need help.

The creature on the old man's left struck first, attempting to draw a pistol from its hip. The old man lunged the final few feet between them and slashed at the alien. The blade bit deep, nearly bisecting the creature from its left shoulder to right hip. It screamed from behind its mask and fell to the ground, writhing in obvious pain. In the same motion, the old man tried to arc the weapon for a strike at his other foe. This one, however, was different. It did not wear a mask over its face, revealing its sharp and cruel features to all. It was dressed in some kind of thick leather coat, held tight to it upper body with a series of belts. It also seemed to be smarter than its compatriot. It moved its body slightly to its left and leaned back, making the blade pass harmlessly in front of it. Then it backhanded the old man, knocking him from his feet, though he managed to maintain his grip on the sword.

While Mark was inwardly impressed by the old man's bravery, especially in the face of creatures that apparently sowed terror to all before them, he knew the village elder was out of his league, and would require assistance. So the young Spartan silently moved up behind the tall alien, any noise he made covered by the sounds of fire and screaming from elsewhere in the village. The alien stalked forward to finish the determined old man, and had raised its right hand in preparation of a claw-like swipe when Mark struck. The fore-grip of his MA5K smashed into the back of the alien's head, and the Spartan felt the skull give way and the brain turn to pulp as the creature crumpled. The old man still appeared to be dazed, and didn't notice Mark as he slinked back into the shadows.

**Approx. 1803 hrs local time, Date Unknown (Timestamp Error, Transporter Activation plus four days)**

**1.7 kilometers west of Indigenous Village**

**Unknown Planet**

Fred wasn't certain he had made the right call. He had very little idea of what was going on in the immediate tactical situation, and was completely clueless about the larger political scene in this strange new world. He had, however, been fighting aliens his entire adult life, and then some, and knew that their thoughts and motivations were rarely anywhere near human. Thus, when aliens began attacking humans without provocation, and were hunting for some unknown and possibly unknowable object amongst human dwellings, his course was clear. For better or for worse, he and his Spartans would aid the humans now, and learn more about the situation later.

That would all come after the current situation was resolved, however. His primary concern at the moment was keeping these advanced humans safe. They were outfitted with equipment that was slightly more modern than the pre-industrial village the Spartans had been scouting for the past few days, and they seemed to have an understanding of modern combat doctrine. In Fred's mind, these were the most likely source of information on where in the universe the Onyx transporter had sent them to. First contact was definitely warranted, and Fred knew that one of the best ways to make a good impression on someone in these circumstances was to save them from certain death.

As precious seconds ticked by, and the scores of hostile aliens began to spread out and obtain better firing positions, Fred considered his options. Not for the first time, he cursed Kurt's battlefield promotion. True, as an officer, the younger Spartans would now follow him without question, but that shouldn't have been a problem anyway. Fred was used to commanding small units, and could do so effectively, but the new rank felt… awkward. There was a weight on his shoulders that he felt shouldn't be there. He knew what it was, of course. He was currently the highest ranking active Spartan. Whenever Spartans came together, he would be the one taking command and issuing orders. That responsibility had always been John's. 117 had always been squad leader, and for good reason. John had always exhibited qualities of leadership that Fred knew was lacking in himself. Kurt was the only Spartan that would have made a good high ranking officer- he was kind, in a Spartan way, and took the time to talk to everyone and get to know his squad on a personal, rather than tactical level. John, however, was the best Spartan to lead other Spartans in any situation. While Fred, like any of his brothers and sisters, knew how to lead from the front and consistently lead his team to victory, only John knew when to lead from the front, when to lead from the rear, and when to make sacrifices that no other Spartan would ever consider, Kurt included.

Fred inwardly cursed his rank again, even as he made his decision on what needed to be done. He motioned to Kelly and Linda, who looked over from their hiding places nearby. A brief, silent conversation followed via hand signals as Fred outlined his plan and dropped a nearby NAV marker on their HUD. Then all three abandoned their positions and silently moved to the designated waypoint while Fred contacted Ash.

"Red One," he said.

"Sir?" came the reply.

"Blue Team will initiate contact with the enemy. Once the engagement has begun, move to cover the team you've been following. Do not let any of them come to harm. At that time stealth is no longer a priority."

Ash's acknowledgement light winked on, and Fred nodded to himself. The boy would do fine, and was turning into an excellent Spartan with definite leadership potential.

Linda and Kelly were waiting for him to cross the last few meters, and then they prepared for initial contact. Assaulting an enemy formation this large from one side would be completely ineffective, and without knowledge of the other humans, or what their training and capabilities encompassed, the Spartans could not depend on them for help. The quick, easy solution was to conduct a flanking maneuver. While Ash was in a good position on the exact opposite side of the enemy from Blue Team, he was needed to keep their potential allies safe. Therefore, another Spartan on that side of the enemy was necessary, with one difficulty. It would take too long for one of them to circle the enemy, and there was the possibility, however slight, that the circling Spartan might be detected.

The most viable solution to the problem was for a Spartan to move, undetected, through the middle of the enemy formation and arrive on the other side in under ten seconds. On a two dimensional battlefield, with only standard Marine equipment and troops available, such a thing would be impossible, even for a Spartan. With two other Spartans available, a third dimension in which to move, and the new stealth capabilities of the MJOLNIR mk. VII armor, however, the solution was plausible.

Kelly secured her assault rifle on her back while Linda crouched in front of her, lacing her fingers together to make a stirrup. Kelly placed her left foot in the stirrup while Fred grasped her right arm. Then the Spartan sprinter chose her target- an alien that was stepping forward to speak to the human team, probably to demand surrender. It didn't matter to Kelly. She engaged the active camouflage on her armor, and nearly disappeared from the visible spectrum.

The three Spartans crouched lower, like a coiled spring. Then, as one, all three applied superhuman strength and near-psychic level teamwork towards one goal: Launching Kelly on a ballistic trajectory through the trees and over the heads of the hostile aliens gathered before them.

**1804 hrs, August 16, 2006**

**1.7 kilometers west of Native Hunting Village**

**Planet M2R-753**

John Sheppard felt the first tendrils of fear begin to creep into his chest. In the dark, the Wraith had managed to get almost on top of them before they sprung the trap. The six Wraith that the Dart deployed had delayed his team long enough for the main force to catch up to them. Now, with only a couple dozen meters separating his group from the bloodthirsty aliens, retreat wasn't even an option. They could just run the humans down and slaughter them with impunity if there was no cover fire. Everyone except Ronon, and the ex-Runner was currently out of action, still conscious, but too dazed from the trio of stun rounds to even return fire from cover.

Suddenly, the incoming fire stopped, and Sheppard could hear the heavy, careless footsteps of a Wraith approaching through the darkness. He turned, and steadied his P-90 on top of the log, ensuring his sighting on the Wraith in the near-total darkness. It looked like any other command-level, independently thinking Wraith. It wore a customized version of their trench coat-like armor, had long white hair, cruel features, and an identifying tattoo. Although, whether the tattoo was for recognition by other Wraith or by their victims was uncertain.

"Atlanteans," it said, "you cannot win. Surrender, and hand over the Runner, and your deaths will be brief."

_Yeah, right,_ Sheppard thought. Death by Wraith was seldom brief, and always painful. That, and Sheppard had no intention of dying on some strange world in the middle of the night.

As he opened his mouth to reply, however, he noticed something strange. Roughly three meters above the Wraiths' heads, there was a shadow quickly moving through the darkness. He couldn't see it directly, as what little starlight filtering through the treetops just seemed to… bend around it. From the descriptions of the villagers, Sheppard knew this was what they had been seeing for the past several nights. Judging by the Wraith's activities over the past few minutes, this apparition was not a Wraith, nor was it anything made by them. The Air Force colonel had a split second to ponder alternatives before the shadow landed.

When the shadow reached ground level, Sheppard was treated to a sight that he knew he would remember for a long time to come, though whether it was out of disgust or elation, he would never be able to say. For something that looked as though it was nothing more than a shadowy shimmer against the darkness, barely corporeal, the thing weighed a ton. The Wraith commander that had demanded their surrender pitched forward, the imprint of an enormous boot collapsing his back and pressing the corpse into the ground. Above the body, the air shimmered for a brief instant, and a figure faded into view.

Now standing on the other side of the log from Sheppard was a towering seven foot, armor-clad monstrosity. The outermost armor plates shone an eerie white-green in the starlight, and the black under plates were completely invisible. If Sheppard's eyes were any less trained, he would swear that this thing was an empty conglomeration of plates magically held aloft and animated by some insanely advanced technology. As it was, he couldn't be sure exactly what he was looking at. It was too tall to be human, and a dull faceplate covered any hint of what might lay beneath.

Whatever the thing was, it only stood still for a moment, and then, with a motion so fluid it seemed more like a dream than reality, it retrieved a matte black weapon from its back. Then it turned from Sheppard and, without preamble, opened fire on the surrounding Wraith. Its aim was frighteningly accurate, and even before Sheppard's combat-honed reflexes let him sight on a new enemy, three Wraith drones had been riddled with projectiles.

As the remaining combat-effective members of the Atlantis team re-engaged, Sheppard noticed two very disturbing events. First, _another_ enormous armored figure moved up from the shadows behind them. It was essentially a clone of the first except for a few minor details. Very minor details. It was difficult to tell from its crouched position, but the newcomer only looked to be about six and a half feet tall, and its movements were a little easier for Sheppard's eyes to follow, as if it was slightly less smooth and fluid. It wasn't enough to make any real difference, and Sheppard couldn't be certain that it wasn't some trick of the light and darkness, or the sights and sounds of combat intruding on his concentration.

Second, and possibly more disturbing than the giant machine-man-creature-thing crouched not two meters behind him, was the supporting fire coming from the other side of the Wraith formation. From his position behind the protection of the fallen log, Sheppard could just see some of the Wraith several dozen meters away starting to turn and fire into the underbrush, while several more fell from projectile fire. While such an occurrence was normally welcome, even Sheppard's trained eye was having difficulty spotting the muzzle-flashes, and what he did spot kept moving around, enough to make him think that there was either an entire platoon out there, or several more of these green-armored… things. He was very uncomfortable with the idea of even _more _of the strange creatures being present. Just the one seemed to be enough to utterly annihilate fifty or sixty bloodthirsty Wraith with little trouble. The enemy could hardly hit the thing; and on the off-chance that a Wraith managed to actually hit it, the energy simply dissipated over some kind of advanced personal energy shield.

Under the withering fire of the Atlantis team's unknown saviors, the Wraith fell quickly. As the last of them died, McKay slowly rose from cover, nearly overwhelmed by both the timely defeat of their attackers and the advanced technology that the armored creatures utilized. Ronon, now almost fully recovered, sat behind the log looking pissed, though if it was because he had been stunned, saved by unknown people, or simply had missed most of the fighting, was unknowable. Sheppard and Teyla, on the other hand, knew better than to celebrate too soon, as there were still two Darts somewhere in the vicinity, not to mention the defenseless hunting village only a couple of kilometers away.

As if in response to Sheppard and Teyla's fears, they could hear both Darts returning from wherever they had been. One took up a position flying cover and making certain nothing escaped the area, while the other lined up for a strafing run on both the armored giant that had landed amongst the Wraith and Sheppard's team just beyond.

The giant humanoid looked at the approaching Dart for a moment, then turned to Sheppard.

"Get to cover," it said in a calm, gruff and decidedly female voice. For a moment Sheppard was too shocked to move. While he wasn't against the general idea of females entering combat, Teyla being a prime example of his lack of prejudice, he never thought that something so large, strong, fast, and accurate could possibly be female.

He was shaken from his musings by a tapping on his shoulder, and looked to where the giant that had remained next to his team through the fight was motioning deeper into the surrounding foliage. His mind now back on track, Sheppard looped one of Ronon's arms around his shoulders and looked to Teyla.

"Teyla," he said, "you and Rodney grab Kallar and follow me. Quickly!"

Knowing that they would follow his orders to the letter, Sheppard immediately turned and followed the armored soldier's directions, and found some dense underbrush in which to hide. He dropped Ronon and turned around just as the others dropped beside him and the Dart began its attack. The warrior that it had lined up on, the same one that had somehow been invisible as it flew through the air to land on a Wraith commander, fired its rifle continuously at the Dart, making certain it had the thing's attention.

As soon as the small ship opened fire, the female soldier turned and… _accelerated._ There was no other word for what the Atlantean team observed. The thing went from a dead stand-still to speeds normally associated with an automobile in less than three seconds. The dash was not without purpose, either. She led the Dart away from the unarmored humans and towards a particularly sturdy tree some two hundred meters away. The Dart picked up speed accordingly, continuing to fire as it gained.

The female… thing, for now Sheppard was convinced it could not be human, simply ran straight up the trunk of her targeted tree, never losing speed, and leaving several inch thick gouges in the bark as she went. Then, as if she had done it a thousand times, she leapt off of the tree in a graceful flip, twisting her body acrobatically to orient herself towards the Dart, and landed just in front of its cockpit as the fighter swept by the tree and pulled up.

The warrior didn't hesitate once she was there. She punched _through_ the armored hide of the Dart, and then ripped out something that Sheppard thought looked important. She punched again, this time sinking her arm up to the elbow, and shoved her other arm in next to it. The Dart turned away at that point, the pilot understandably distracted, and Sheppard couldn't see what happened for a moment. The ship continued its lazy arc around in the sky a few meters above the treetops, and the human was treated to the sight of his newfound ally pulling the pilot bodily out of the Dart and snapping its neck in a blur of motion. She dumped the body and leapt down into the trees just as the Dart's wingman lined up a shot and fired, destroying the ship almost completely.

As the wreckage began to rain down, Sheppard saw the warrior swing out of the trees, holding on to branches just long enough to swing towards another one and dump some of her momentum even as each branch gave way under the immense forces being exerted. Even with all of that, she still landed heavily. After swinging from the last branch, some five meters off the ground, she tucked into a roll, touching down first on her feet and allowing her forward momentum to carry her through the roll onto her shoulder, and launching her into a shallow jump forward another four meters. While in the air she extended her legs and came out of the roll, finally landing and sliding to a stop, her legs carving a six meter long trench as she transferred the last of her fall's speed and energy into the ground. From his vantage point some fifty meters distant, Sheppard guessed the trench at a good two feet deep. With all of that armor on, the warrior must have easily weighed at least half a ton, probably more.

The Atlantis team leader was also starting to get a bad feeling about these newcomers. As a pilot, Sheppard was well-versed in ballistics mathematics, and the forces involved when something crashes into the ground at high speed. While he liked to play stupid around most people, the geniuses on Atlantis making it even easier, he was still a capable pilot and had a decent mind. No human skeleton could withstand the weight of an armor system like that, and even if it was powered, a likely possibility, there was still no way she could have survived even that final impact. Let alone get up an walk around after it, as she was now doing. At first he thought Replicator, but then he noticed her limp. It was very slight, made even harder to see by the darkness, but there. Definitely not a machine then, either, but then what were these things?

The remaining Dart overhead did not attempt to attack. Instead, it came about and headed for the Stargate. Sheppard and Ronon both watched it go, and shared a look.

"We've gotta take down that Dart," Ronon said, an urgent edge to his voice.

"I know," replied Sheppard. "If he gets back to warn whatever Hive he came from, then-"

"Relax," said the warrior that had been crouching, forgotten, nearby. This one seemed to be male. "Green team will take care of everything."

**Approx. 1812 hrs, local time, Date Unknown (Timestamp Error, Transporter Activation plus four days)**

**Near Alien Transport Ring**

**Unknown Planet**

Ash had spoken true. As soon as the second alien fighter began making for the Ring, Fred had radioed orders to Tom and Lucy.

"Green One," he said, "enemy aircraft inbound to your location. Suspect it will attempt to retreat through the Transport Ring. Do not allow it to escape."

Tom and Lucy both flashed acknowledgement lights. Then Tom paused. How were they supposed to take out a fighter? Their small arms would take too long, provided the light weapons even had the punch necessary to do such a thing. Lucy, crouched next to him, tapped his shoulder and pointed. Behind his faceplate, the young Spartan smiled. There, at the edge of the clearing no more than fifty meters away, stood the remains of an ancient oak tree. The trunk would have been roughly twenty meters tall standing upright, and was easily a meter and a half in diameter. Some long-ago storm had blasted most of the top branches away and ripped it from the ground, leaving only a couple of roots still embedded in the dirt, the remains of the rest reaching out like some grotesque claw. Tom flashed Lucy an affirmative hand sign, and then began to move.

Between the two of them, it was no trouble to finish ripping the tree from the ground and move it into position. Tom was never more thankful for his superhuman strength than at this moment. Within thirty seconds, they were ready.

Not a moment too soon, either. The Transport Ring spun around in a specific sequence and activated just as the alien ship entered the clearing and began its approach, dropping altitude and speed.

Half way between the fighter and the Ring, Tom and Lucy began their attack. The tree trunk lay parallel to the approach path to the Ring, with the root system, Tom, and Lucy on the end closest to the alien ship. As soon as the fighter dropped altitude, they began their swing. Standing closest to the ship's trajectory, Tom would aim and provide most of the power. Lucy was mostly helping with the initial effort of moving such a large object, normally too massive even for a Spartan-III. The idea was to get the tree to smash into the nose of the ship, hopefully providing enough counterforce to destroy it utterly, otherwise the craft would simply tear through the tree and make its escape. A risky maneuver, but the only one they had available to them.

The timing was right, and Tom and Lucy swung, both straining their muscles with the effort. The tree gained momentum, and Lucy let go and jumped away. Tom was about to, but noticed something wrong. The ship was lowering its altitude further and picking up speed to compensate and try to get under the tree while still continuing to make its escape. Thinking quickly, Tom rotated his shoulders slightly and threw his weight downwards, sending the trunk of the tree into a downwards arc like some giant hammer.

It was a close thing, but the Spartans' plan worked. Just as the ship flashed by, the tree trunk struck it amidships, right over what appeared to be cockpit area. The nose of the craft sheared off, spinning into the ground, bouncing over the Ring and into the forest some ways beyond. The remainder of the ship broke apart as the opposing forces met. The center crumpled like a hollow paper ball, killing the occupant instantly, while the engines sheared off and flipped end over end before auguring into the dirt, carving a deep gash towards the Ring, and almost crushing the strange control pedestal in front of it.

The tree, however, did not fare any better. The end of the trunk exploded into splinters where it struck the ship, while the rest of the tree reacted to that fulcrum and sent the roots back along the alien craft's trajectory. Still holding onto the roots at the moment of impact, Tom was subjected to the same forces as the tree. He felt both of his arms dislocate, saved from being torn completely off only by the MJOLNIR armor, and was thrown roughly fifty meters through the air. This was the first time he, or any of the SPARTAN-III's had entered combat wearing the amazing armor system, and he completely forgot about the hydrostatic gel layer, as well as the armor's ability to lock its joints in preparation of impact. As such, when he landed on his back, both shoulders were forcibly relocated as his shields completely drained, setting off an annoying warning tone, and the air was driven from his chest. He felt his right lung collapse, but that was only another spike in his already pain-filled world.

After a few moments, Tom's mind came back to him, and he was able to push aside the majority of the pain. Slowly sitting up, he saw the remains of their impromptu weapon and the wreckage of the alien craft some distance away. Vaguely, he thought that it hadn't felt like he'd been thrown that far. He shifted his gaze as Lucy came running up to him, concern written in her body language. Looking closer, Tom realized she was also carrying his assault rifle, as hers was still strapped to her back. When- and how- had it come off of his back?

Using hand signs, Tom assured his mute partner that he was fine, took this rifle, and then activated his radio.

"Green One to Blue One," he said, stifling a wince as his collapsed lung inhibited his breathing and sent fire through his chest, "hostile craft destroyed. Awaiting orders."

"Acknowledged Green One," came Fred's voice. "Remain at your current position. Search the wreckage for anything valuable, and report any further activity. Blue One, out."

Tom winked an acknowledgement light and then slumped slightly, glad that he didn't have to cover the thirty-odd kilometers to rendezvous with Blue Team. At least not yet.

Standing, Tom surveyed the area briefly, making certain there were no enemy infantry about, and no survivors from the wreck. Then he and Lucy got to work.

**Time Unknown (Unknown Error, MJOLNIR clock temporarily halted), Date Unknown (Timestamp Error, Transporter Activation plus five days)**

**Beneath Unknown Alien fighter**

**Unknown Shipboard Hangar**

The white light faded, and though the Master Chief hadn't actually felt any time pass, he knew something had happened. He knew this because as the alien ship passed by over him, he noticed an enormous hangar of some kind reaching several hundred meters above and behind him. He was also surrounded by civilians; locals from the planet, as he recognized a few of the faces from his reconnaissance. He also noticed the strange looking aliens surrounding the tiny group of humans. They all had some kind of unknown weapons trained on the group and, as John's Spartan Time took over, they opened fire. Green-blue energy flew towards him and the civilians, and the Master Chief decided that these aliens, possibly the 'Wraith' the hunter had spoken of, were definitely hostile.

Remembering the Forerunner needler held in his right hand, he raised the weapon as the first civilians fell. Taking aim at the nearest alien, he opened fire…

_Author's Note: _This is one of the longest chapters I've ever written, and definitely the longest combat sequence, so I'd like feedback. Whatever you can tell me to help me improve, I'd appreciate. Nonsensical babbling is, of course, ignored, but any well-thought-out review is and will be given serious consideration. Thanks!


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